Customer Reviews
Quality Compass Watch 
2008-11-25
I needed a watch with a compass, alarm, time and date. This was the only watch that had all three and I bought it.
Mine was purchased from a non-amazon seller, and came with a rubber band, and had a blue dial, not brown like the one shown in photo. I owned velcro bands before, and prefer rubber one. I recommend calling and asking for that variation, as I only found one retailer that sells it in that configuration.
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Compass exceeded my expectations. First of all, it is instantaneous, unlike lensatic compasses. Like lensatics, if it is not held flat it will give a wrong reading, so its important to keep it relatively flat. There is errata of about 5 degrees so you may not want to shoot a mile long azimuth with it. I check it with my regular compass, and its very close. All that's needed for hiking and orientation.
Timex watches have an intuitive setup that they use across the board on their models. I owned Timex Ironman in the past, so the setup looked very familiar.
It has a timer, which counts down from a set time. It is minimally complex, and quite useful.
Alarm, rather quiet. Good if you are already awake and need a reminder.
Chronograph - starts timer and stops when you finishes. straight forward two button operation.
Time date day - large easy to see.
Compass - one button operation, instant reading.
Ultimate backlight - just like other Timex watches - very bright and lights entire dial.
Possible improvements for the future: I'd like to have GPS coordinate capability and a selectable sound for alarm(currently it is not very loud).
It is an excellent watch, at 30-50 dollars, a good deal, well worth the five stars.
Works good 
2008-09-16
Had it for a few weeks now, seems to work good. It did freak out for a second a few days after I got it by completely reseting itself... screen went blank for a sec, then came back. Everything works fine though. If you never calibrated a digital compass, then I can see how it could be frustrating. Also, of course the compass needs to be recalibrated every so often. If I really needed to rely on this compass to get me somewhere, I'd recalibrate it every couple of hours. But just for the gee-whiz factor of having a compass watch I do it once a week or so... or whenever I want a somewhat accurate heading.
Setting digital Compass:
Go outside away from anything metal. Start the little calibrate option holding the compass level to the ground. Spin in 2 circles SLOWLY! Finish the calibrate.
This watch will allow you to enter the difference between true and magnetic north if you want. I really don't see why you would unless you live in a part of the world with a large difference... Timex says this compass is accurate within 5 degrees, so it is really only good for a general idea of cardinal direction. N, NE, E, SE... ect. If you really care about if you're pointing 105 or 110 degrees, then get a regular analog compass.
Very good, but my first one was defective. 2008-05-08
Works very well. Nice that you can adjust compass reading to account for magnetic variation. Features seem to all work. Looks nice. Strap feels/looks good and is replaceable, too. Instructions reasonably easy to follow (except for compass directions which reference control buttons by names not clearly (if at all) shown on the diagrams). All in all a very satisfactory performer. BUT NOTE: my first watch was defective, failing several times over first 2 weeks; I returned to seller for replacement which I have received and put through a rigorous workout for past several weeks. I suggest you do the same, repeatedly testing all the functions to ensure it does not fail. The failure was seen by a sudden resetting of everything back to zero hour. That is Jan. 1, some years ago at 12:00am. Not good.
Good value for the money 2007-08-07
Directional readings are accurate enough to navigate by, but not as accurate as watches costing four times as much.
It has lots of useful features like, alarm, countdown timer, and chronograph.
Decent, but not great 2007-06-04
I like this watch, the strap and body look nice, and it performs well too. The indiglo display is bright and easy to toggle with the large button at the base of the face, but it doesn't stay on after releasing the button: you must hold the button down to continuously light the background. Not great, but I would've liked a one second delay.
The compass feature is why I bought this particular model, but after using it a few times, I didn't really continue to use this feature. As the manual states, sometimes the compass needs to be reset, and it seems like whenever I took the subway (I live in Tokyo, Japan), or was in a large building, the compass would get screwy.
Despite these caveats, I think its definately more than decent, just not incredible. Thanks Amazon!
Good 2007-03-19
Wrapped and ready to go! This watch comes in a neat gift Box just in time for the holidays. Limited time offer.
This is a great item! 2007-01-24
Positives:
The watch is: compact, simple, easy to use, and lightweight with many useful features.
The compass functions fairly well for simple directional use, not exact measurements. I find that the watch is usually dead-on, but not to rely on it because it can be off by some 10 degrees sometimes. Great for simple navigation.
Negatives:
I had been looking for a watch with 3-6 alarms, 3 chronographs, and 3 timers. (Of course this is my problem, not the watch's because I knew that it has one alarm, a chrono, and a timer.
The backlight: I dislike the backlight on this watch. It should have a feature to either stay on when any button is pressed or only go on when the light button is pressed. The watch DOES have this feature except if it's on the "any button light" mode, it only stays on that mode for some hours.
THE WATCH IS A GREAT ONE FOR THE PRICE!
PROMPT DELIVERY OF ORDER 2007-01-16
I was very pleased with the order it was timely and there were absolutely no problems incurred. I would definately order from this seller again.
Watch ok, wrist band not ok 2007-01-14
I have nothing against the watch itself, the compass feature works ok, the backlight as expected for a second Timex etc. Maybe the backlight button is a bit hard to press but this might be a feature against accidental pressing.
However the wrist band really sucks. It is made of some plastic that makes you perspire & keeps the moisture in that area. The most unpleasant effect is that at a point it starts to smell like hell, and no, it's not me :-).
Brushing it with some cleaning powder buys you another 1-2 month of use, depending on how hot the whether is and what you do with your watch on your hand.
Great watch for value, battery can be replaced! 2006-11-08
I purchased this watch 2 years ago for around $25. It has been a great watch, keeps accurate time (I am using it for celestial navigation class, so every second counts) with little drift. The Compass is good for getting a ruff idea of direction; I would not depend on it for anything more precise then +/- 10-15 degrees
The Indigo light function is a good feature, but it must use a lot of battery power as the watch is very stringy with leaving it on. There is a mode where it will stay on for a few seconds on each button pres, but even that resets its self after 6 hrs.
There has been a lot written about how it is difficult to replace the battery, and Timex instructions of taking it to a jeweler does not help that much.. This summer my battery went out, and I had to replace it. It is not THAT difficult. You need a small screw driver, and a CR1620 battery. Both of these are ready available at Radio Shack.
Taking the back off and then carefully take the watch core out. There is a formed plastic carrier that holds the battery on the back of the watch core, this is held in place by 4 small metal clips. Once the carrier is of, then the battery can be slipped out (make sure to note which side is + and which is -, there was no makings on the case I could find to tell me...) Putting it back together taking care not to bend the small clips, and putting back the plastic insulators. Overall took me about 10 minutes. Now, I will admit my Seiko battery is a LOT easier to replace.
So, for the $, seems a great value. Esp if you can pick one up with a dead battery!
