As watches, they're not exactly inconspicuous. In fact, although the smaller ones (including the tested Fossil Abacus) aren't unusually large for a man's wrist, you'd only feel really comfortable with one if you're used to wearing an older Timex Ironman, or even a vintage calculator watch. While these new watches do include chronograph, timer and alarm functions — plus a highly accurate self-setting clock — there are no calorie counters, heart monitors or calculators.

Instead there's a rolling stock of content, which you can more or less organize on the MSN Direct website. The main categories are Weather, News and Stocks. In Weather mode, you can leave the watch on local weather, and tap a button for a three-day forecast. You can also scroll through a list of cities for current weather all over the country or world. Stock quotes aren't up to the minute (in fact, they can lag up to an hour), but you get more details like highs and lows, and percent change than you'd get with the usual ticker. News gives you mostly one-sentence digests of stories from sources you pick from a list. If you're a news junkie who's away from a TV or computer all day, it can be helpful, but also frustrating because the descriptions are so short. The Glance setting cycles through info bites from the three categories, while keeping time in the header. An ESPN-powered Sports channel will be coming soon — an addition that, provided it can be customized for particular teams and sports, might be worth more than the other three channels combined.

If you're an Outlook user, you can also synch the watch to your calendar. The watch alerts you to upcoming appointments and shows you the detail. Although there are no outgoing messages, the watch can receive messages from your MSN Messenger buddies.

Microsoft and its partners are putting a lot of marketing money into these watches, but it's hard to think of them as anything more than a field test. I don't think I'm the only tech-happy person who would love to get information beamed to my wrist — it's a perennially good idea — but I also can't believe it's overweening vanity that keeps me from wanting to wear this thing in public. Also, I feel the information sent to the watches could be richer. If you're a fiend for the latest gadget, by all means, get one of these. But if you have merely an enthusiastic interest, stay tuned. With luck, better watches and more enhanced content are just around the corner.