featured watch 4 - casio paw1300 pathfinder
November 11, 2008 – 3:34 pm
Another favorite watch of mine is the Casio PAW1300 Pathfinder. It is a great travel and camping watch because (a) it costs less than $250 and (b) it has an amazing amount of functionality built into a relatively small package.
First cool feature is it doesn’t use batteries - instead, it uses solar power to charge itself. I keep my watches in a pitch black safe when not wearing them. Even after two months, the watch is still running with half a charge left. The specifications state that it can go 5 months on a single charge.
Another cool feature is it syncs with the atomic clock shortly after midnight every night over radio waves so it is always accurate to less than 1 second. It actually can sync to different frequencies around the world (US, UK, Germany, Japan), so no matter where you live or travel, it should sync up to the nearest atomic clock signal.
Speaking of traveling, it has dual time zone capability so you can keep track of two time zones at once. The time zones are labeled by city like BER for Berlin, LON for London and CHI for Chicago.
The watch also has an altimeter, compass, thermometer and barometer built into it - plus it is waterproof to 100 meters (333 feet). There is also a countdown timer, five alarms and a stopwatch!
One last cool feature is the auto activated back light that comes on when you turn your wrist towards your body to read the time. It only comes on in low light situations (and can be deactivated).
The watch is very lightweight and constructed of plastic resin, making it light and comfortable to wear. The strap has a buckle type closure so you can easily adjust the fit while traveling. I like this because when it gets hot out, I like to loosen up the strap one notch.
