A gentleman’s choice of timepiece says as much about him as does his Saville Row suit.
IAN FLEMING
I have worn a watch since elementary school. I received watches as Christmas gifts. One of them was a Mickey Mouse watch or a Snoopy watch. I can't remember which one now. Another one was a Bulova. I may have worn some other watches from Timex, but I don't remember any of them. My first serious watch for me came in college when I bought a Timex Ironman watch because I got into running for fitness. I would wear multiple versions of that watch for the next two decades. I will talk about this more later in this post.
Somewhere, people ditched their watches and started looking at their phones to get the time. I never did this. It is more convenient for me to just look at my wrist. I know because people with phones ask me for the time all the time because they are too lazy to look to their phones for the time. I tell them it is time to buy a watch. This causes them some anger, but I don't care. Get a watch, idiot.
This phone as watch thing is the return of the pocket watch in a digital form. I have never been a fan of the pocket watch. People that don't wear watches count as idiots in my world. It is one of the first things I look for when I meet someone. Do they wear a watch? If you don't wear a watch, I cannot take you seriously as a person.
The other sort of idiot is the person who does wear a watch except it costs as much as an automobile. I will never understand how anyone could wear a Rolex or waste money on such a thing. A Rolex might be a good store of wealth if you put it in a safe. Wearing a Rolex invites the world to beat you to death and walk off with your timepiece. That brazen theft would be more lucrative than robbing liquor stores.
When buying a watch, there are certain considerations to make. Here is a short list of those considerations.
1. Mechanical Vs. Quartz Movement
For generations, a watch was a mechanical affair. Watches required winding. Then, there are those self-winding watches that get wound by body movement, or those spinning affairs you can buy to keep the watches wound up. These mechanical watches suffer from a lack of precision. Things like heat and humidity can affect their performance. You forget to wind them. They need an annual service to maintain that accuracy, and this is not cheap.
One day, they came out with watches that had quartz movement. These watches required batteries as they still do today. You didn't have to wind them, but you did have to replace the batteries every so often. This is the downside. The upside is they are more accurate than a mechanical movement watch.
2. Analog Vs. Digital
All mechanical watches are analog. Many quartz watches are analog. Analog is the watch with a dial on the face and moving hands. The digital watch just shows the digits. My personal preference is for a digital watch. You tend to get more functionality with a digital watch like a stop watch, a timer, an alarm that beeps, etc. The digital watch also makes it easier to tell time. But I can tell time on an analog watch the same way that I can drive a stick shift automobile. I prefer an automatic transmission. To be more precise, my left knee prefers an automatic transmission. Likewise, my damaged brain prefers a digital watch over an analog timepiece.
The downside of a digital watch is the aesthetic. Digital watches look like nerd watches like the ones they wore in Napoleon Dynamite. I love the nerd aesthetic. The Ironman and the G-Shock have done much to rebrand the digital watch for athletes and military types. Ultimately, I don't care. What my digital watch says about me is that I care more about function than fashion.
3. Timex Ironman Vs. Casio G-Shock
As I mentioned earlier, I used to wear the Timex Ironman. I cannot throw shade on the Ironman, and I would recommend it to runners, ultrarunners, and triathletes. I am none of those things. I am a fitness walker who refuses to wear a step tracker. This is why I prefer the Casio G-Shock DW5600 as my fitness watch. It is a no-frills timepiece and is as basic as a G-Shock gets. I like the countdown timer and the stopwatch features. It has the EL backlight, so I can see the time in the dark. There is no split timer or any of that. It is rugged enough to endure the rain and yard work. I love the watch. I wish I had bought the G-Shock originally instead of the Timex Ironman.
Your choice on this matter comes down to activities. I am not an athlete, so I love the simplicity of the G-Shock. If I was an athlete, I would go with the Ironman. I got old and dropped the fantasy self of being an athlete. When I am not in exercise mode, I just wear the Casio F-91W as a beater watch because I find it more comfortable than the chunky G-Shock.
4. Smartwatches
Before the Apple Watch, there was the Fitbit. When Apple came out with their smartwatches, I cringed to discover that they needed recharging. These watches are also ridiculously expensive. The Fitbit was cheap relative to the Apple Watch, but these electronic watches must be recharged. I've heard "horror" stories of people who went out without a full charge.
The one smartwatch that does interest me are the Garmin watches because of the navigation features. We already use a Garmin in the car, so I would love to have one on the trail if I ever got to do that again. The problem is the Garmin watches are expensive. Plus, I haven't been on a trail since before my accident. I will probably never get one, or I will choose a handheld device.
A lot of folks have turned to smartwatches as medical monitoring devices. I don't have any conditions that require monitoring like this, but I know my time is coming. This is when I will end up with a smartwatch on my wrist, but it won't be an Apple watch. I despise Apple.
Conclusion
That's all for my viewpoints on watches. If you could only buy one watch, I would tell you to splurge on a G-Shock. It does it all. If money is tight, a cheap Casio is a very good option. If you want a sharp looking watch, I recommend a Timex analog or a Seiko. When I want to look sharp, I wear my metal Casio like the one Uncle Rico wore in Napoleon Dynamite. It is delightfully tacky like bell bottoms, and I like that sort of thing. I am not a watch snob or James Bond.
