As mobile phones have shrunk in size, so one boffin or another has invariably thought "at last, it's small enough to strap onto someone's wrist and call the thing a watch phone!" The result has invariably been a frankenstein-esque device that looks remarkably like a mobile phone bolted onto a watch strap - in other words, more phone than watch, and not at all what you want hanging on your wrist.

Finally, though, all that's set to change as mobile phone technology has at last reached the size where it can be incorporated into the dimensions of a watch and so actually look like one. The proof is this, the SMS Watchfone M500, from Australian company SMS Technology.

More details and pics after the jump.

The M500 is the world's smallest mobile phone, and as you can see from the pic, it clearly looks more watch than phone.

Better still, it's not just a cheapo phone with poor features, as the M500 comes with the following:

• Quad-band GSM, so you can make calls anywhere in the world
• MP3 player that can also play AAC-encoded tunes
• MP4 video player
• 128MB of memory
• Bluetooth 2.0
• USB
• 1.5" colour TFT screen
• Java
• WAP
• SMS and MMS
• Email client
• Touchscreen
• Clock (obviously!)

That's quite an impressive list of features for such a tiny phone. It's even water-resistant!

The SMS M500 watchfone is shipping now from MyMobileWatch.com (where else?!)

[Source: GearLog]