# Reccomend me a good quality digital watch **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 12, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-good-quality-digital-watch/312217 "2005-07-12T18:38:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-good-quality-digital-watch/312217/1 "2005-07-12T18:38:42Z")
I’ve been wearing digital watches for over 10 years now and I’ve always gone for the cheap, supermarket versions because they’ve served me adequately. When I first started, a $20 digital watch might last me for 3 years before breaking down. Nowadays, with the drop in quality, a $10 digital watch lasts me about 6 months and it’s just not getting economical to keep replacing them anymore. So does anyone have a reccomendation of a watch brand that is reliable and non gimmicky? I don’t want a big chunk of plastic on my wrist that can do 1 bajillion things. I just want something that can tell the time and date, has an alarm and a backlight. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-good-quality-digital-watch/312217/2 "2005-07-13T01:02:25Z")
I had bought my first digital watch in the 80s - an inexpensive Casio 50m water resistant “sports chronograph”. In the late 90s I decided I wanted another watch, and I bought another Casio, one with an EL backlight. The beep on that one failed, and I had saved my older watch, so I went back to it. With a few battery changes, it’s still going. I couldn’t find that exact model on the Casio site, but the one that resembles it the most is [this one](http://www.casio.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=products.content&catalog=Watches§ion=Casual%20Sports&product=W43H%2D1AV&content=Technical%20Specs). Depending on why your watches fail, perhaps one of Casio’s G-shock line would last longer. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-good-quality-digital-watch/312217/3 "2005-07-13T01:38:03Z")
I second the G-Shock (standard “black” models, not the ones they started making a few years ago with all the extra plastic bits stuck to the front.) At ~$60 for the 200M model I think they’re quite a value and I’ve had the current one for five years. The only problem is that when the resin plastic band breaks you can’t get an OEM band; the only ones I can find are sold under the Timex label and they tend not to fit correctly. OTOH, I got a kind of cheaper Casio with a sailing timer for regattas, and it fogged up and stopped working, so I took it back and got another…which promptly did the same thing. Grrrr… On the high end, I like Seiko, and for a gadgety “wrist computer” for various sports you can’t beat Suunto. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-good-quality-digital-watch/312217/4 "2005-07-13T03:59:09Z")
Digital watches are pretty neat.