A Solid Watch

I purchased this watch at a local sports shop on the way to a race because my Polar Heart Rate Monitor died on me the day before. I just picked up the first watch that looked solid enough to last for a little while until I could get my HR monitor fixed, and had enough memory to hold 30+ splits. I really wasn't looking for anything fancy, but this particular Timex Ironman watch did catch my eye because of it's sleek design. I've had the watch now for nearly 6 months and have been extremely happy with it. I think it is probably the nicest sports watch I have ever owned.

Design
Probably the nicest thing about this Timex Ironman is it's sleek design. The watch itself is extremely thin and hugs the wrist very closely. It sticks up less than a quarter-inch above the wrist and wraps itself around the wrist smoothly from watch-face to band because they are so well molded together. The band is made out of some kind of durable rubber and almost wraps itself around the watch instead of attaching with fragile pins like most watches do. I have lost many a watch to pin breaks, so this is a very welcome design upgrade. The watch is mostly black with a light grey circular section around the watch face.

The watch has four buttons on the sides of the watch and one main one on the front of the watch just below the display. The main button on the front is used for taking splits and makes it really easy to reach down and tap during a race so that you don't have to fiddle around with the buttons on the side. All of the buttons work well and I haven't noticed any loss of sensitivity or any other degradation in performance in the half-year that I've been using the watch.

Specs and Functionality

Clock: The watch has a standard digital clock which can display the time in 12 and 24 hour formats. It also displays the day of the week and date in smaller letters above the time. The date can be displayed in MM-DD or DD.MM format. There are two separate time settings which you can switch back and forth between by pushing and holding the main button on the front of the watch for 2 seconds when in the clock mode.

The time is displayed in HH:MM format in large letters that stand out nicely so that you can see them easily with a quick glance. They aren't the oversized ones that you see on some digital watches these days so they don't stand out from afar, but they are definitely big enough to easily be seen by the wearer. The seconds are displayed next to the minutes at about half the size, and the day and date are also displayed at that half-size. The formatting works just right because it allows you to see the time quickly and the other information is just large enough to see well with a more focused look. If you are in 12-hour mode, a small "A" or "P" will be displayed above the seconds to indicate AM or PM.

Stopwatch: The stopwatch has a 50-lap memory which allows you to store 50 splits in the watch memory. You can store multiple sessions as well, up to 50 total splits across all the sessions. The start and stop of each session counts as one split each so you could store 25 individual sessions in the watch memory without any splits in any of those sessions. Each added split counts as one towards the total, and as soon as you reach 50 splits you won't be able to take any more. I've tested out maxing out the memory and basically what happens is that your 50th split will be recorded as the end of your current session so if you are in the middle of a race and you reach 50 splits that 50th split will appear as the end of your current session, although your watch will continue to run and allow you to take splits, but none of the ones over 50 will be stored in the memory when you store the session.

It is a little weird that it lets you just keep taking splits over 50, but it is nice that it doesn't just stop on the spot because that would be quite distracting in the middle of a race. I guess it's best that it just keeps working like normal after 50 splits even if it won't record them. It's better to find out after the race that you missed some splits than it is to be alerted in the middle of the race when you have more important things to focus on.

If you start a new session after the memory is full it will still work like normal even then, but you just won't be able to store any of it.

After you stop a current session you can save it by holding down on the top left button for about two seconds. You can recall saved sessions by holding down the same button when the stop-watch is at zero. In recall mode you can easily browse through all saved sessions and go through the individual splits for those sessions. The splits are saved with total time and split time so you can record either one easily later on.

The stopwatch itself is simple and easy to use whether you want to take splits or not. The big button on the front starts and stopwatch and takes splits and the bottom right button stops the watch. It is always a little bit harder to reach the side button to stop the watch, but it is best this way because you don't want to hit it accidently during a race. I have found that if I am wearing something else around my wrist next to the watch I can accidently hit the stop button my bending my wrist up, so you have to be careful about what you are wearing, but next to a naked wrist I have never accidently hit any of the buttons.

Timer: The watch has a count-down timer feature which allows you to start a timer which will count down any number of hours, minutes and seconds less than 24 hours. It will beep whenever it reaches zero and can be set to stop at zero or start over again allowing you to use it for interval sessions or any other timed activity with multiple sessions of the same time. It doesn't allow you to do any complicated presets like multiple sessions of varying times, but for a simple count-down timer it works well.

Alarms: The watch has three separate alarms that can be set to go off at any hour of the day. I rarely have need for more than one alarm, but I guess it can be useful for some people especially since the alarm doesn't have any advanced settings. You can pretty much only set the time of each alarm and whether or not you want them to go off. There are no advanced settings like certain days of the week, or every other day, but at least with multiple alarms you can have multiple times of the day set without having to reset your alarm every time.

Just about the only thing that I miss in this watch is a sleep function. The alarm will only go off once and as soon as you deactivate it by pressing any button it won't go off again until it is set off again at the same time the next day of course. This can be a little dangerous if you are using it as your primary alarm and have a tendency to continue lying in bed after your alarm goes off the first time

Indiglo: The watch has a simple indiglo feature that allows you to illuminate the watch for viewing in the dark. The top right button is dedicated to the indiglo feature and pressing it will activate the indiglo for 5 seconds. If you hold down the button for several seconds the watch will go into night mode in which pressing any button activates the indiglo. This is quite useful because when you are using the watch at night it is much easier to press buttons like normal and have the watch face illuminate automatically without having to press the indiglo button as well. It is also nice that you can turn on and off the night feature because sometimes you want to be able to push some buttons without illuminating the watch.

Durability
This watch is extremely well built. I am especially impressed with how well they have attached the wrist band to the watch. The wrist band is a durable rubber band which can twist and bend in all directions without showing any signs of brittleness. Each band wraps itself around the sides of the watch almost gripping it like a claw. I imagine the standard pins are holding the bands to the watch, but they are so well hidden under the band that there is no risk of them breaking off. I have lost too many watches to little pin breaks, and I can't begin to describe how happy I am with the durability of this design.

The watch itself is made of a hard plastic with a metal back and glass-like LCD face. One of the bands has a metal clasp at the end of it to allow you to connect the two bands around your wrist. Even this clasp is attached so well that I can't see any signs of wear on the connection.

This is definitely the most durable watch I have ever owned. I have put it through just about every trial short of deep-water diving that you can subject a watch to and it doesn't show any signs of wear. I still can't quite believe that a watch can be made this well. I had become quite accustomed to getting a new watch two or three times a year, but with this Ironman I can't even begin predict how long it is going to last. I have yet to see how well the watch holds up to being opened to replace the battery, but as long as that goes smoothly and the watch remains as durable after that my only prediction is that I will lose it before it breaks down.

The Bottom Line
This watch is not an overly complex watch and it doesn't have a ton of features, but what it does it does right. It is extremely easy to use and it is so well built it will last you a long time. It's sleek style and comfortable design will make you want to wear it everywhere. In the world of watches this Ironman stands out so far ahead in terms of build quality of any of the other watches I have tried over the years that I still have trouble believing it can be so solid. And at less than $40 it is a steal. If you need a reliable watch for any kind of timed activity or even just for everyday life this Ironman is a solid choice. The lack of a sleep function in the alarm is a little annoying and definitely does detract from this watch's ability to serve as a primary every-day watch, but other than that it does everything perfectly. I will eventually go back to my Polar HR monitor because I really need the HR functionality for my training, but this little Ironman is so much better than the Polar in every other way that I wish I am putting off fixing the Polar as long as possible.