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 On: 2004-04-28
I would have to say that this is in all honesty the most functional watch i have ever owned! Although it is also the most expensive watch i have ever owned.This could be the reason for the funtionality.(HaHa) To start off this is first and foremost a timepiece and it does just that in two timezones i might add !! And alot more including telling you the temperature. Although it tends to be consistently off at least several degrees at best.(unless you remove it from your wrist for about five minutes when testing the temp.)for a guy who loves bells and whistles this is still a nifty idea. Altitude, barometric pressure the rising and falling trend of it, and a very accurate compass and it also has a very cool stop watch feature for those who are concerned with how quickly or slowly they accomplish things. All of these numeric readings can be computed in metric or the everyday U.S. methods. and then stored on the internal logbook. The useability is a bit questionable at first but with so many features you can hardly expect the watch to do so much without a few fnacy button pushes unless you want your watch to look like the helm of the Starship Enterprise!!! I bought the watch because i wanted a high tech digital watch and i did not want the typical everyday piece of steel wrapped around around my wrist.Nor did i want to look like an office worker who left the desk with his whole bloody PC atached to his wrist.Because i did not want to sacrifice high quality and functionality for looks I went with the higher priced Titanium model for all of those reasons ...I have definitely found that TItanium while a heck of a lot lighter than steel not to mention that cool look of TItanium really contributes to the aesthetics of an already good looking watch. The give and take of this is that the Observer is also not as "stainless" as steel i do alot of outdoor sports and activities and i have scuffed the case of my observer in less than a month...Noticeable to others probably not, but very noticeable to the guy who who just shelled out a pretty penny for a watch.(Durabilty of the finish a definite shortcoming) The one thing that probably takes a close second to the finish durability issue would have to be considering the price of the watch. One of the most elemntary things that it lacks is a suitable alarm it is tooooooooo low.... Very very quiet to say the least i am an avid outdoor person who cycles and runs quite frequently, and on a slightly windy day you can forget about hearing your lap counters or your other alarms..God forbid it is a cold day and you are wearing your parka if you plan on using the rate of decent or ascent counters while skiing you can all but cancel using your watches alerts (unless you tape it to your ear). In addition to being quiet there is no hourly chime setting at all, two very elementary alarm features found on lower end watches Yet left out of my high end piece for an unforseen reason by our guys over in Finland ?(hmm maybe they forgot mine)The compass feature works wonderfully i have only had the opputunity to actually use it once not on an outback wilderness expedition worthy of the "CROC HUNTER" but i did use it to navigate through a town i had cycled to about 35 miles away from where i live it led me right back out to the main road without the use of one street sign or a visit to the local shamrock for directions!!!( Guys we all the know the value of that!!) The altimeter i find to work like a wiz also once it had been set from a definite reference height coordinate ie: The Tower of the Americas Building in Downtown S.A. . My observer has been banged,scraped, rained on, drooled on uncontrollably and even forceably yanked on by my 11 mo old and it is still intact so it surely is sturdy despite the "scuffabilty"* of the case... Mind you the glass face is just fine i have yet to scratch it. All in all i like the watch and i would recommend it only if you can get pass the alarm feature. This was a thing i had to get used to by the way....But the Sunnto Observer Titanium by far is a good watch from a good company, just be sure to keep it away from hard scrapes because of the lack of scratch resistance of the metal.
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