I had the older version of this watch that didn't include the compass.  The half leather/half fabric strap from the old watch finally wore out, and it turns out that the watch itself was discontinued, so I had no option for a wristband replacement.

I bought this watch to replace my older one, and so far it's worked great.  All of the same features, plus the compass.  To be honest, I don't use the compass feature very much, but I briefly calibrated and tested it, and it does seem pretty accurate.  The light tan colored ring around the face turns so you can set your compass heading.

The leather wristband on this one looks good, and doesn't have any of the silly fabric sections that my old one had.  The watch is light, and feels comfortable on my wrist.  I value function in my watches, and this one provides the same chrono/timer/occaison/alarm1-2-3/hydra features that I used in my previous watch.  In addition, it displays the day of the week, month, and day of the month on the face.

The one thing I'd desire in this watch is the same I'd desire from my previous watch: standard sized, replaceable wrist bands.  I don't like having to replace my watch every time I wear out the band.

All in all though, it's a good watch, very functional, looks good, and it's comfortable.  If the band holds up anything like the band on my old watch, it'll probably last me at least two years.

EDIT April 25 2013: After looking frayed and decrepit for a few months, the wristband finally broke today.  Less than two years after purchasing the watch.  Reading the other reviews for this watch, there's apparently a 1-800 number I need to call to get a replacement.  Seriously?  They have a website that they take watch orders from, and they can't just add the wristbands to their website inventory?  It's not like these bands are custom made or something, they probably come from the same warehouse as the watches themselves.  Timex has known for years now that people are unhappy about trying to find wristbands for their watches, and yet they haven't taken ANY steps to make them more available?  I've been wearing Timex watches for over 20 years, and in my experience they are built strong and have *always* outlasted the wristbands.  Up until this watch and my previous one, I could normally find replacement bands in department stores or websites.  The only way a lot of people know how to get a replacement band for this watch is because some random review on an Amazon product page mentioned the Timex phone number.  How can you call that good customer service?  Is Timex trying to make the bands less convenient to buy, to drive up sales for new watches when the bands fail?  If so, I'd rather switch brands than continue funding such a shady business practice.  It's too bad that after 20 years of being a loyal Timex customer I'll have to switch watch brands, not because the watches are crap but because the bands are.  I've downgraded my rating on the watch from 4 to 3 because of the band issue and gave 1 star to Timex for blatantly ignoring the needs of their customers.