Tucked away at the back of Toshiba's CES booth is a surprising and intriguing product — a prototype smartwatch that can pair with an iOS or Android phone and provide notifications, kind of like the famed Pebble smartwatch. Instead of using an "e-paper" display, however, Toshiba's watch has an OLED color display and ARM processor. We just got a chance to handle a hardware prototype, but unfortunately it didn't turn on — the only models with screens on were stuck behind glass. The prototype itself felt solid, if unremarkable, but it seems a bit more stylish than the average tech-focused smartwatch at first glance — the bands and colors felt similar to what you'd see on standard watches.

According to the display in Toshiba's booth, the watch will include a variety of different watch faces and will feature a "web shop" for purchasing additional options, and an app will let you customize them to your liking. The time is set by whatever your phone is set to, and it includes built-in sensors to optimize the display for brightness and viewing angle. Once paired with your phone, the watch can alert you to calls, emails, calendar notifications, and can pull in news, weather, or even GPS directions. It also features a sensor that lets the watch recognize "its owners unique pulse pattern" — and if it doesn't recognize that pattern, the smartwatch functions are disabled for security. Unfortunately, there's no sense of when this watch will be available to consumers or how much it'll cost, but we're looking forward to seeing another option in the small but growing smartwatch segment.

Chris Welch contributed to this report.