Pulsar Men's PS7001 "Tech Gear" Digital Watch with Black Band

Since their first appearance on the market in the early 1970's, electronic digital watches have gone from being expensive high-tech to rugged all-purpose tools, the classic modern example being the Casio G-Shock. With the PS7001, Pulsar (the makers of that very first electronic digital watch) delivers a watch which combines the rugged tool aspect seen on many other watches with another feature which is extremely rare, namely, a machined stainless steel case with a screw down case back. While this used to be common on all watches, digital watches have gradually moved to cases made of resin or plastic, with a back held on by four tiny screws.Resin or plastic has some good points...it's very inexpensive to manufacture, because it can be molded to shape rather than machined. And the finished product is much lighter than most metals, so the watch is lightweight on the wrist. However, resin does become brittle with age, and sometimes the holes where the springbars attaching the strap will no longer engage properly, or the holes for the screws securing the back strip out after too many battery changes, and the watch becomes no longer water resistant.The PS7001 is made the way all watches used to be made...a solid block of stainless steel, machined to shape and then polished, with a round stainless steel cover on the back which screws into place with an O-ring providing water resistance. The back of the watch carries the famous Seiko "Tsunami" logo (perhaps I should mention that Pulsar is a division of Seiko, and so shares some of their technology). The watch is physically 45mm wide (not counting the pushers or the barometric sensor) and 17mm thick...fairly large, but not as large as some other watches. Despite it's size, it comes across as sleek, rather than chunky, because of the streamlined shape. When first worn, the weight of the steel case is noticable, especially if one was previously wearing a lightweight plastic watch....this passes fairly quickly as the Pulsar is very comfortable to wear.The strap is resin, similar to that found on many other sports watches, and has a basketweave pattern on the top surface. The ends are curved to fill all the space up to the edge of the case, and the bottom side is arched to allow air to circulate underneath, enhancing comfort. The strap attaches with Seiko "fat" spring bars, which allows other 23mm straps to be worn, including the popular NATO type.The "negative" display features a combination of 7 segment and dot-matrix areas. The digits have a golden color which I like. The crystal is Seiko's Hardlex, a specially hardened mineral glass. It's 34mm wide, and arched slightly. The polished inner bezel is actually part of the steel case, the symbols and numbers are engraved into the metal and filled with black paint. The black outer bezel and the housing for the barometric sensor looks like ion coated steel, but could possibly be black plastic.The altitude sensor works by detecting changing atmospheric pressure as one gains or loses altitude. Therefore, it needs to be set to a known elevation before beginning any hiking trip. And since barometric pressure changes with the weather, the altitude displayed can change too, even if the watch is lying stationary on a desk. I tried this feature by setting it to the elevation of my city (5520 feet) then driving 275 miles to another city (2805 feet). The watch displayed 2700 feet, an error of less than 5%. Returning to my own city four days later, the watch then displayed an altitude of 5835 feet, because a low pressure system had moved into the area while I was gone. So the altitude feature is useful, but it isn't just "set it and forget it"...if accurate readings are critical, then it must be reset at known elevation markers when they are available, especially if weather conditions are changing.The temperature reading will obviously be affected by heat coming from your own wrist, and can be offset by as much as 20 degrees by a simple adjustment. This allows the watch to either display accurate temperature when OFF your wrist, or when correctly adjusted, when ON your wrist. However, the sensor on the watch must be exposed to the air to detect temperature. Sufficiently long sleeves, or gloves with cuffs which cover the sensor will prevent accurate readings. If cold weather clothing covers the watch, accurate readings can be obtained by wearing the watch OVER the sleeve (maybe with a longer strap, like the astronauts in the space program) or putting the watch around a backpack strap or belt loop.The watch also has features commonly found on most other digital watches such as a chronograph, a countdown timer, several alarms, etc. The light has the familiar blue-green color seen on many other watches.Many reviewers here on Amazon have mentioned that they received watches with a dead or dying battery. Let's be honest here...these watches are new, but we don't know how long they've been on a shelf waiting to be sold. A dead battery is NOT an indication of the quality of the watch. When I opened the box, mine was dying, and the display was flashing a warning. Pulsar warranties the battery for 3 years. If you receive a watch with a dead battery, Pulsar will replace it AT NO CHARGE. As it happens, I own the proper tools to remove the back and replace the battery, and I had a new battery already on hand (same as used in one of my older Casio's). However....even if I had to pay a local to replace the battery IT WOULD BE WORTH IT, because the watch is unusually well made and unique, offering features not available at anywhere near the price.The Pulsar PS7001 just may be the handsomest digital watch on the planet, looking sleek and polished instead of the "military ops" appearance of many digital watches. It is well made and offers some features only available on one or two other digital watches plus others which are not available anywhere near this price. It's a great watch and a great value.

I've always been a fan of digital watches, and in particular, Casio. I came across this watch by browsing the Amazon site, and decided to order it. After about 10 days of use, I really enjoy it. The watch is well built and a bit on the heavy side, but still feels comfortable to wear all day. It has many features, some of which are useless to me, like the chronograph with lap history. The rest are time display with a choice of day of week and day of month, or name of month and day of month. Seems like there was room to just display all three instead of choosing which two to display. There is a dual time function, which you can easily toggle without having to drill down using the mode button.Another nice feature is that you must press and hold the adjustment button for two seconds before adjustments can be performed, thus preventing accidental changes. Although the band is plastic, it has an attractive but subtle checkerboard design and appears durable.Other functions include an altimeter you need to often calibrate against a known elevation as barometric changes will change the accuracy (true of any barometric based altimeters). The time display also constantly displays the altitude as well. The weather display shows the temperature and barometric trends, however it will read high as the sensor is affected by body heat. Fortunately, you can offset this by calibrating the temperature reading. As mentioned, there is a chronograph with lap history and also store up to five different runs in a data area. There are five countdown timers. four regular alarms, two altitude alarms, and one "hydration" alarm, which they say can be used to remind you when to drink (a little over the top, I think).A few minor disappointments prevent it from being a five star rating for me: No hourly time signal, no single display of month, day, and day of week, no solar, or other long life battery (expect two years max), no compass, and no atomic clock sync.All in all I think this is a very nice watch, is a great value (just over $100), and do recommend it, depending upon which features are important to you.

Great looking watch. Easy to learn to use and difficult to accidentally hit a button you don't want to. The only thing that disappointed me is I thought it was an automatic movement and not battery powered. ( I read that in a review somewhere). But on the plus side it uses a common 3032 button battery so you won't go broke on battery prices. I also like the power saver option. The only con I have is the countdown timer. It has five timers but they go consecutively from 1 to 5 with only 2 beeps in-between. If you want it to stop after one timer you can only set one timer. The alarm is rather quiet so it wouldn't wake you up if your asleep. If you want a great looking watch that is functional you can't go wrong.UPDATE: The battery died after 2 months use in the power saving mode. But what is worse is the crystal, it seems to get scratched any time you touch anything. My crystal is so scratched that it is getting hard to read the display.

It's a very nice looking, heavy and useful watch... Just not useful for all of the things it's advertised for. Altimeter is consistently bouncing around even in the same location as much as 100ft. The themomometer is useless unless you want to know the exact temp of the air directly on the back of your hand. Not worth the price or the disappointment.