Timex

I've been wearing a Timex watch ever since I can remember. You remember their slogan: "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking." Well, corollary to that is if something does go wrong with your watch, the Timex Service Center will either repair it or replace it (for a small fee).

In 2008, I brought my Timex Ironman watch to one of those mall kiosks for a battery replacement. Mistake. The waterproof seal was never the same. After several pool swims, the display began to fade. So I sent it in and within a couple weeks they sent me a replacement. They charged me 50% of the original cost of the watch, so 50% of $75 = $37.50. Not bad I thought.

So that replacement had been doing just fine for quite some time, until... well, I like to roll the band around on my wrist. Sometimes I like the face to be on the inside of my wrist and sometimes on the outside, and instead of taking the watch off, I just wrangle/force it around to the other side when I feel like it. All was fine until one day while switching the orientation on my wrist, pop - the band broke. Turns out that the part of the band that broke is permanently molded to the face of the watch. Again, I went through the process of sending in the watch (sent on Aug 18) and just today (Sep 29) - exactly 6 weeks later (a bit long since they said they were a bit swamped lately) received a brand new replacement watch, total amount due: just $10. It's the most recent comparable model to what I had with a heart rate monitor, so it's a very useful, sensitive, quality piece of equipment.

Top: Old watch with broken band (watch itself still works).
Bottom: Brand new replacement watch.

I am a satisfied customer and just wanted to share this brief story.

But while I'm talking about Timex, I'll also share some notes about their foray into the GPS watch space.

Last year I purchased the Timex Global Trainer Ironman GPS watch. I called it the "hockey puck watch" cause it was so big. But it was packed with cool features - especially the ability to track multiple segments in one consecutive workout (e.g. Swim, T1, Bike, T2, Run) so as a triathlete I thought it would be a great training and racing tool. Well, it was a bust. I was happy to be able to use it up in New Hampshire on some long hikes where I used it to chart elevation and topography, but right here in Boston along the open expanse of the banks of the Charles River, I experienced much difficulty "locking" the GPS on satellite signals. Pretty frustrating when you go out for a run, but then have to stand there holding your arm up to the sky for a few minutes while it "searches for satellite". Ugh. And even the times when I was able to get a GPS lock and start a run, often times it would drop partway through and I would lose my speed/distance details. Thankfully I purchased the TGT at REI, and so was able to return it and get my money back.

All that said, I'm hoping Timex has learned from whatever design issues the TGT faced, and have corrected them in their latest soon-to-be offering (expected to be released this Oct 2011): the Timex Run Trainer. From a feature perspective, this is a running watch only. I'm looking forward to trying one out when they're released.