Short Thoughts

The Search for a Simple Watch

You’d be surprised how hard it is to find a good watch nowadays. After about three years of being a rebel, insisting that the only thing I needed to tell me the time was my iPhone, I’ve made an about-face on my position for one simple reason: the iPhone does a great job at telling me the time, but that’s not its purpose. Being the semantic person that I am, and endeavoring to have some sense of fashion, I’ve decided that the time has come.

Now let’s put this in perspective. My last watch was the Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA (yes, a watch with a stylus that runs Palm OS), and before that I owned the Fossil Wrist Net watch for MSN Direct (weather, sports, etc. delivered over FM transmissions to the watch… for $60 per year). They were big, bulky, and very semantically not-correct. My iPhone does everything they did, and for that reason, I now pursue a simpler ideal: a watch that tells time and is actually attractive.

After much searching with a budget capped at $450, I’ve finally narrowed it down to four choices, all for less than $300 (SCORE!). I’ve listed them here in order of my preference at the moment, though that is subject to change (hence why I haven’t just bought the first one already).

The first contender is this Citizen Corso, the only watch with a non-standard color watch face that I actually find attractive (the face color is more apparent on the Citizen website). It by far has the best casing out of any of the watches, with a nice, attractive titanium band. I feel like it would be appropriate both casually and in more formal situations, and it’s not at all too busy like many of the watches I’ve seen: one dial, a date display, and only two numbers (in Roman numerals) on the whole face. Killer feature: it’s solar, never have to replace the battery. Amazon Price: $177.00.

My second choice is a little out there: the Phosphor Ana-Digi E-INK watch with metal band. It’s a relatively attractive watch that uses e-ink technology, which I haven’t heard about since the start of this decade (kind of thought it died off, glad it didn’t). The cool thing here is that you can cycle through a variety of different watch faces depending on your mood, so it can be appropriate for pretty much any occasion (here’s an animation of the different faces). Killer feature: one of the faces is just a digital readout, so you can have a spotlessly clean analog face but still be able to tell the time at a glance. Amazon Price: $195.00.

Vying for third place is the Skagen Swiss Steel Chronograph. Skagen has somehow managed to put four dials on a watch (the main dial, and three mini dials on the face) without it looking busy, which is impressive in and of itself. Reminiscent of the Corso, the face only has one number (the 12) and a date display, but it also has the added features of the analog chronograph. It’s probably the best-designed face of any of the watches, but it loses me ever so slightly with the beveled casing surrounding the face (and the typeface on that one number on the face — little too 30′s for me). Killer feature: the band is Italian leather, so whenever I dream of driving a Ferrari, I can just sniff my wrist. Amazon Price: $295.00.

The fourth place runner-up is considerably more reminiscent of my watches of old: the Suunto Lumi Terra. It bills itself as a wrist-top computer, and it does have some features that allow it to earn its name (altimeter, barometer, compass), but it’s considerably simpler and less bulky than my other watches that went under that moniker. Yes, if you read closely, this is a women’s watch. Ignore the flower imprinted on the (changeable) band, however, and I honestly can’t see why, it’s a relatively gender neutral design, and I would not object to its categorization. Killer feature: a streamlined digital display that doesn’t feel cramped, but isn’t too over-the-top techy. Amazon Price: $243.00.

The Suunto is barely in the running, but it really is a tough choice between the first three. What do you think?