I have been noticing most of the watches people are wearing these days are analog instead of digital. I remember how proud I was in 8th grade (1978) when I had my first digital watch, the kind with the black face and LED readout you had to press a button to see. I would count the seconds and play with the date it was so cool! Soon the LCD watches appeared with an alarm, hour chimes, stop watch, military time…ect
and that was the ultimate. Now, I have a plain old fashioned analog with hands and numbers only no alarm or calendar. I am back to telling people who ask the time quarter after 10 instead of 10:15. A watch or clock with hands and numbered dial seems so elegant to me now, I would never go back to a digital. I wonder why my tastes changed, has anyone else noticed this?
No.
Studi
Don’t speak ill of your enemies; plot it.
Yeah, I have noticed the same thing. When I go out I tend to dress nicely. And there is nothing like a thick watch squatting on your arm like a fat titanium toad. They are heavy and expensive, and they can be a real pantie-dropper, if you’re into that sort of thing. 
Don’t get me wrong, I have a G-Shock that I love. However there is no way I will give up my Tag-Heuer that I wear with nice clothes. So I guess you outgrow the novelty of a digital watch, but can still use the utility of it. And then you realize that chicks dig expensive gangster style watches.
Of course that’s just my opinion, I coulde be wrong. Noonch.
“And on the eighth day, God Created beer
to prevent the Irish from taking over
the Earth.”
~SNOOGANS~
I’ll weigh in with the analog. I just wish I could afford a Rolex GMT Master II (the one with the extra hour hand for keeping track of other time zones… in my case it would be GMT).
I have a Seiko analog that I bought in 1986 and my dad’s old Seiko Bellmatic. I like the Bellmatic better because it never needs batteries. I like the newer one because I can swim with it on. But for looks, I’d still have to go with the GMT Master II.
I like analog also. I think it is much easier to get a quantitative feel of how much time there is left before lunch. Let’s see … it’s 10:42, how long before 11:00. See, you don’t have to subtract with an analog, just look at it and see … about that much time.
I think digital watches are kind of cold and impersonal. An analog watch has a face. A digital watch is, well, it’s just a number.
I like to wear those watches that are on a clip that you hook to your belt loop. Unfortunately, they’re starting to become fashionable. I’m worried about becoming trendy.
The trouble with Sir Launcelot is by the time he comes riding up, you’ve already married King Arthur.
This is the perfect place to share this tale:
My late father was the King of Analog watches. He really, really liked them. He didn’t get the most expensive kind of watch - perhaps in the $100-$250 range (this was 10-15 years ago.) But still, a watch of that price was rather a lot for a man of his thrifty nature.
I remember him turning green and looking a little ill when he saw me wearing a digital watch. Apparently analog was the ONLY way to go as far as he was concerned.
Our family knew that my dad had a “thing” for digital watches, but we really didn’t know how far he had taken it until after his death. We figure that he was worried that digital would take over analog, and he just wanted to make sure that he had a “stash” of analog watches. We found, hidden away in a drawer that my mom had never opened, at least TWENTY analog watches. All of them almost identical - with a wide gold band. All of them worth approx. $100-$250 (some of them still had receipts in the boxes.) My dad was a very sensible, rational person, and we could tell by the way that these watches were hidden away that he must have been very ashamed of his “compulsion” to get watch after watch after watch. But I guess he couldn’t control himself. We ended up giving many of these watches to my dad’s old buddies, who now have a rather expensive keepsake to remember him by.
I just had to share this story, seeing as I think it is an excellent example of someone really preferring analog over digital!
I used to love digital watches. I got my first one when I was 10, even though I’d only had my analogue watch since I was 8 (my Mum didn’t think we needed a watch until then - it really pissed me off that five year olds that couldn’t tell the time got a watch, but I had to wait till I was eight, even though I could tell the time when I was four!!!)
Anyway, I got various digital watches over the eighties, but each one would break somehow - stop, smash, lost, etc - and nobody seemed able to fix them again. So every time, back to my analogue watch.
I had that analogue watch for twenty years, and it never failed me! Until the spring went ping in 1998, and I got my current analogue. Which is nice, it’s silver, has one of those bizarre outer rings that I can’t figure out what it’s for, and has a battery and doesn’t need winding!
Digital watches lost their appeal for me at the same time as synthesiser music changed into crappy techno shit. I wonder if there’s a connection…?
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I dig watches in general. Until I began running again, I hadn’t had a digital watch in years. If I could afford it, I would probably buy a watch a month. Analog is definitely the preference. I have a nice heavy Swiss Army watch that a girlfriend bought me almost ten years ago when I was in college. I have small wrists, so I can’t wear a really large one like the kind SmickD mentioned. IMHO, analog has more possibility for style. Of course, it also lends more to creativity as well, and possibly a lack of style if you consider the rather nice, leather-banded Curious George watch my step-son gave me for Christmas. Yes, I do wear it.
Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.
– a Celtic motto
Even though I’m a gadget nut, I never really cared for digital watches. I currently wear a cheapo Timex with the big numbers on a plain white face. The only “high-tech” part of it is the “Indiglo” feature. I also have a Bulova “skeleton” MECHANICAL analog watch that needs repair. When it was working, I would get at least two offers a week from people wanting to buy it. The guts are all gold-tone and it has a clear face and back and has black hands. It’s kinda neat to watch the little flywheel flicking back and forth.
Anybody know a GOOD watch repairman?
I’m afraid that I’m gonna have to weigh in on the other side here.
The engineer in me just doesn’t see the practicality of analog watches. To me, the purpose of a watch is to tell me what time it is as accurately and inexpensively as possible, and for the sme price range digital watches are far more accurate than analog watches. (Sure, you can purchase a $250 analog watch that’s incredibly accurate. It’s almost as accurate as a $30 digital watch.) To me the thought of using moving parts to spin dials around is just too inefficient a way to measure anything.
I’m aware that mine is a minority position on this one - all I have to do is wander into any store and look at the watches they have for sale to remind me. Also nobody has ever accused me of being a slave to fashion - or even of being well-dressed, for that matter.
(I tend to purchase a $30 Timex or Casio digital watch, then replace the cheap plastic/leather watchband that comes with it on favor of one of those Twist-O-Flex bands. I’ll lose it after a few years and buy another one.)
I also prefer digital computers over those older analog models 
Trumpy303
My watch is the same as yours, a Timex indiglo. I love it!
I prefer analog watches but I haven’t worn a watch since I lost my Seiko in Vegas in 98. I really hated loosing that watch because I bought it with money my grandmother gave me before she died. Even though she didn’t give the watch as a gift, it reminded me of her.
I have a Gucci watch that needs a battery, but in the year and a half since I lost the Seiko, I just haven’t bothered to take it in. Besides, it has a lizard strap and somehow it just looks clunky on me.
Now I have a cell phone strapped to my belt all the time, with the time on it and a pager so I use those for my time reference now.
Owner of…
One analog Just watch
One digital LCLT watch (plain black face, red LCD display when button pressed)
One digital Pulsar Spoon watch (bloody expensive fancy-looking thing).
What can I say, I’m a slave to fashion.
I never touched him, ref, honest!
Great story, Yosemitebabe. Winced and laughed at the same time reading it. When clearing out after my mom died, we came across the same drawer full of watches.
I’ve had digital watches but never really liked them much. A tool is only as good as its effectiveness, and the constant hassles of using and maintaining the digitals far outdistanced their usefulness. I hated the “press this, press that” stuff.
I love analog watches. I have two:
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a funky Fossil paratrooper watch, with a brass cage over the face. I’ve had it for 12 years, and it’s survived bashing against file drawers, canoeing mishaps, etc.
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a slender silver and gold Croton dress watch. It doesn’t snag on sweaters, etc. and I don’t have to worry about stupid “jewelery matching” stuff. (BTW, this was my Christmas gift to me; I hadn’t had a dress watch for 10 years. Hard to “dress up” a paratrooper watch!)
Though I suspect digital watches will improve in appearance and usefulness, in terms of ease of use and actual effectiveness, I’ll take analog, thanks.
(BTW, I’m suprised and gratified to find I’m not the only analog fan around!)
Veb
Proud owner of a Timex analog watch 21 years old - has taken a lickin’ & still kept on tickin’.
Also have a great Fossil watch, and another no-name analog.
I prefer analog watches because it’s much easier to surreptitiously glance at your watch during a meeting and tell the time from the position of the hands. The one digital watch I owned had to be read at nearly a right angle to the face of the watch…
Fillet,
Gotcha beat. My still-running Timex is pushing 30 years old. Self-winding, it still runs. But I don’t wear it any more because I have a couple of other watches.
One fun one is my G.I. surplus wind-it-with-the-stem slightly radioative (glowing hands) watch. At about $60 I wear it jet-skiing. It’s cheap enough to not worry about trashing.
I like both. (Yeah, wishy-washy.) Currently I’m using a digital because when I bought it you couldn’t yet get Indiglo® for analog (at least at prices I could afford). I do use the alarm feature with some regularity and the stopwatch occasionally–and the digital prices are still much lower for those features.
I do have to take issue with WillGolfForFood’s contention that there is no practicality in an analog watch: I have never found a way to use a digital watch as a compass. In daylight an analog watch can always indicate North.
Tom~
Hey, you just rub it against a really strong magnet and then see which way your arm points.
In fact, I just tried that, and it worked fine.
Oh, gee - look at the time. 49:83 - I gotta go.