I love this thing. About 15-20 years ago I bought an older model. After thousands of hours on construction job sites, 100s of hours of hiking and other adventures, 100s of inches of getting rained on, two destroyed bands, and finally the face plate getting crunched in some ill-fated construction machinery-related snafu, I decided to buy a newer version. The best part is, though, I never had to change the battery and never had any issues with it functioning less than perfectly (until the start/split button was removed with the faceplate when a couple hundred pounds of heavy metal snagged across the surface of the watch on one fateful & rainy Seattle construction mudfest -- but hey, it probably saved my wrist from a severe laceration, so it's also a contractor-approved safety gear to boot).

So finally, a few months later, I decided it may be time to replace it, and wanted something that could live up to my high expectations, which were set, mainly by that last watch. So, after looking at hundreds of watches, most with rough reviews and reputations, or obscenely high price tags,  I found this one, which is, consequently and possibly coincidentally -- or not -- the exact watch that stood by me through rain, sleet and snow, pain, heat and many blows with many objects of various densities, just quite a few years newer.

I've had this for a few months now, and it seems basically the same as the last one, but the watch band seems more solidly constructed and better integrated with the face of the watch...hopefully leading to fewer band breakages. Overall, I have no doubt this will last me as many years of abuse as the last one did. For the average (non-landscape contractor wildman) person, this will probably last a lifetime. For those of us who can't sit still and be normal, it may only last a couple of decades of heavy use. An amazing promise for its relatively low price.

What do they say, "takes a lickin', keeps on tickin'." That ain't no sales pitch, just a shared observation that I would testify to in any court of law or lawlessness in this land or otherwise.