Aside from being a helluva beater of a watch, it’s also a gadgety watch. Consider the specs:
- Tough Solar Power – Solar rechargeable battery with power saving function and battery power indicator
- Battery life – 10 months on full charge an no further exposure to light
- Multi-Band Atomic Timekeeping (US, UK, Germany, Japan, China) – Receives time calibration radio signals which keep the displayed time accurate, accuracy: +/- 15 seconds per month
- EL Backlight – With auto (glance to light) and manual (press G button to light) Illuminate and afterglow (1 or 3 seconds).
- World Time – 31 times zones (48 cities + UTC), city code display, daylight saving on/off
- 4 Daily alarms and 1 Snooze Alarm
- Hourly chime
- 1/100 second stopwatch – Elapsed time up to 24 hours, split time, 1st-2nd place times
- Countdown Timer – 1 minute to 24 hours
- Full auto-calendar (pre-programmed until the year 2099)
- 12/24 hour formats
- Button operation tone on/off
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the compass, altimeter/barometer and thermometer function of the recently departed Suunto Observer. Also, this particular inverted display is a bit hard to read especially since the numbers are smaller than those on the Observer. Finally, the backlight doesn’t remain on while being operated but shuts down in 1 or 3 seconds, depending on the setting. On those, Suunto had it beat. But at $150, it’s still a lot of bang for the buck.
Rating: 4/5