I always in the past relied on my mobile to play the watch in my life but recently being caught a little off guard by weather and the need to go far and wide away from civilisation (and adios phone signal) I am strongly considering a watch with Altimeter and Barometer.
I've done a fair bit of reading but I like to get my monies worth (and invest) into a watch suitable for temperate zones both high 'n' low and one which can have the battery changed quite easily. If the battery isn't an easy option I would like something thats a bit more eco-friendly but also reliable both day and night.
I've eyed the Sunnto Vector as this seems very popular.
I find an altimeter handy, but not essential. Given the choice of paying anything like the Vector's full price and not bothering, I wouldn't bother: a cheapish Casio with a backlight will tell you the time to a few seconds a month and the battery will last for ~ 10 years on recent models.
My altimeter watch was from Santa, and I strongly suspect he got it from F&T's bargain bin for £40, and the same model is there now for £25. See my review here. It's not great, but it's okay, the altimeter works, and it will save you a small fortune over a Vector.
I had the battery changed at a local market. You get plenty of warning it's running low before it gets useless so the virtue of a self change is a bit lost on me: I could probably have done it but compared to someone who does it 10 times a day every day I'd still be looking for the right jeweller's driver by the time they'd have finished the whole job and charged me some ridiculously low sum of money for not having to do it myself.
I have yet to see any of these watches I'd be happy to wear somewhere I didn't think the altimeter would be useful as they're all pretty chunky, heavy and clumsy. If I just want to know what the time is I use the aforementioned cheapish Casio (~ £20 at Argos) which is a lot more comfortable and interferes much less with cuffs and sleeves. Watches have been insanely reliable for little money for years now, there's no need to "invest" in something fancy if all you want is to know the time reliably, and the cheap end of the altimeter market will still be robust and reliable for not much more.
For something a bit different it might be worth a look at the watch/altimeter/barometer/knife made by Victorinox. It looks expensive (about £90?) at first, but combines a lot of useful functions -- if you need them. I would be tempted myself, but already have a perfectly good watch with altimeter and barometer (Casio) and knife. I've been impressed with the Casio, but must admit a lot of the functions are a gimmick/too complicated/of no practical use. I think they do much simpler models costing well under £100.
I acutally agree with Peter about getting a cheap watch. I have spent and had peopple spend a lot of money on watches for me (well I think anything above £100 is a lot for a watch, enough to get a good one) and so far I have had all start to lose time, different hands fail to line up to where they should be, completely fail, un-economic to repair, etc.
My new watch from Christmas is a waveceptor watch by Casio. I think about £60. It has a second hand that no longer lines up to the 12 o'clock derection when changing the analogue time to match the radio signal time. A casio divers watch (£25 to £35) from about 15 years ago still works. I also have a wind up sekonda that was my first watch when I was 10 years. It still works!! Why can't the £150 to £250 watches last much more than the waranty period? NAmes such as Tissot, Accurist (their higher ranges), rotary, seiko, etc. too. Should make a few years after warrantly surely.
Go for cheap casio. Alternatively the £25 altimeter watch if you really need those functions. DO you have a GPS with the barometer / altimeter on it? if so you probably just need a time keeper with light and alarms. I like the ones with digital and analogue so that you can use the hands as a back-up to your compass to find north (ever left behind your c9ompass?)
It's not too difficult using a digital as an instant compass, as long as you can picture where the hour hand would be if it were there. Not great, but if the direction of the sun is "over there somewhere, probably, who knows for sure with all that cloud" it's about as good as you'll get with actual hands...
I like the twin display (hands/digital) as I find analogue easier to read in low light (get a pale face with dark hands and you rarely need the backlight outside of serious darkness) but digital works better for stopwatches and countdown timers, which can be handy at times.
It's got a compass, barometer, altimeter, temperature gauge... oh, and it tells the time and date too!!! It's one of Casio's "Tough Solar" watches, so no need for batteries though it remains to be seen how long the solar panel lasts - presumably when that bites the dust the watch'll basically be heading for the bin as a repair would no doubt be rather pricey.
To be honest I've not got to grip with all the features just yet - not much call for them until we get out and about - but it seems pretty good so far.
The Victorinox knife is not £90 as I thought! It's actually £50 or so in a lot of places. That makes it very good value for something so versatile. It does have some tools of dubious value, adding a bit of weight, but I like the fact it has a pair of scissors, which are very useful for camping.
I've got a Tough Solar Pro Trek PRG-90 with all the bells and whistles. It's a green resin and black stainless steel job and cost me £60 on e bay (buy now price).I am very happy with it. I'd never pay Suunto prices for something that probably won't perform any better.
The Victorinox knife is not £90 as I thought! It's actually £50 or so in a lot of places. That makes it very good value for something so versatile. It does have some tools of dubious value, adding a bit of weight, but I like the fact it has a pair of scissors, which are very useful for camping. - Wrote Guy.
Yes! Be careful though buying the current Swiss Army brand knives as they outsourced their manufacture to India last year back. So now they should really be called Indian Army knives as such, being sadly now manufactured from the cheaper inferior quality Indian steel these days!
http://www.survival-school.org/Default.aspx?tabid=249&g=search NB - I posted about that switch of base of manufacturing for SAK 's on the Trueways Survival School website there last year after hearing about it then in the news. I was reduced by them to just being TrevorD in name on there, after they banned me from the site under accusations of my posting excessive live direct web links to rival survival kit retailers and outdoors and survival kit manufacturers. Strangely though, at that time on that site I was the only regular poster NOT in fact doing that! I never posted one live direct link to anything at all on there!!!! All I ever gave out were the web addresses to places, so that any interested folks could check things out at some later time of their own choosing, if they wished to do so. But they choose to make an example to everyone else out of banning me, rather than the harder moderating job of actually telling off everyone that was in fact really regularly posting live links instead! Which I still really think is a crap way of behaving!
I find an altimeter handy, but not essential. Given the choice of paying anything like the Vector's full price and not bothering, I wouldn't bother: a cheapish Casio with a backlight will tell you the time to a few seconds a month and the battery will last for ~ 10 years on recent models.
My altimeter watch was from Santa, and I strongly suspect he got it from F&T's bargain bin for £40, and the same model is there now for £25. See my review here. It's not great, but it's okay, the altimeter works, and it will save you a small fortune over a Vector.
I had the battery changed at a local market. You get plenty of warning it's running low before it gets useless so the virtue of a self change is a bit lost on me: I could probably have done it but compared to someone who does it 10 times a day every day I'd still be looking for the right jeweller's driver by the time they'd have finished the whole job and charged me some ridiculously low sum of money for not having to do it myself.
I have yet to see any of these watches I'd be happy to wear somewhere I didn't think the altimeter would be useful as they're all pretty chunky, heavy and clumsy. If I just want to know what the time is I use the aforementioned cheapish Casio (~ £20 at Argos) which is a lot more comfortable and interferes much less with cuffs and sleeves. Watches have been insanely reliable for little money for years now, there's no need to "invest" in something fancy if all you want is to know the time reliably, and the cheap end of the altimeter market will still be robust and reliable for not much more.
Pete.
I had the prior version of the F & T watch. It did what it said on the labe if they could put a new battery in. They declined since they were not willing to open up the back and affect any level of waterproofness. They handed it back to me over the counter , I took out a 10p piece, opened the back and them asked them to change the battery. They did !
When the strap broke, I contacted F & T who eventually replaced it by a new strap attached to the new version of the watch which Peter reviewed above. This watch is a master of bad design. As Peter said in his review the date display is much larger than the time display , so very time you want to know the time you see the date. I hated this so eventually got Timpsons to put the new strap on my old watch ( for free) and it is still going strong.
It is a PROTREK one too btw.
