Great, cheap little watch (Casio F91W1XY)

Member Name: liz_barratt

Product:	Casio F91W1XY
Date:	30/10/09 (17 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: tells the time. What more is a watch for?

Disadvantages: Marked as only Water resistant

My husband has had this watch for years, and I used to frequently borrow it for swimming in.

When I first asked to borrow it, he was dubious that it would still work after I had been swimming in it as it was only water resistant, not waterproof. I persuaded him that waterproof meant that you could go deep sea diving and press the buttons at the bottom of the sea it in, that kind of thing. Water resistant meant it was fine for shallow water use so long as you don't press the buttons under water. As I would only be going a maximum of an arms length deep with it and if I promised to take my arm out of the water to press the buttons (I wanted it for timing myself) he let me borrow it. It worked fine, neither of us worried about it, and life was good. Then he lost the watch! We were distraut, searched high and low, to no avail (I think we left it on holiday), so went to H.Samuels and bought a new one (only a tenner, so not bad), exactly the same model. Then he read the instruction book! This cleasrly stated that watches marked only as water resistant, without a depth mark meant they should not be use for swimming, but were OK for washing the pots in and going out in the rain in. Hmm, he now has no excuse for not washing the pots, but he did not want me swimming in it any more. I persuaded him that the other watch had been fine for swimming in, and as this was an identical watch it would also be fine for swimming in. He let me borrow it once, with the promise that as soon as I could get in to town I would buy my own watch, which could be as waterproof as I liked. I did that, and bought a very similar watch, which was marked as 50m water resistant. Not sure why I paid the extra 5 pounds, when the cheaper one would have been fine. I guess that is the power of marketting for you.

OK, so a bit about the watch. It is a fairly basic watch, with a timer and a back light, but nothing fancy. It is cheap, and its water resistance way outstrips what casio claims. The battery on it lasts for ages (my husband had his forst one for about 5 years, but my dad bought one for swimming in, he doesn't believe in reading instruction manuals, so is happy to use his as such, and his is still on its original battery after about 10 years). As I say, nothing fancy. It tells you the time, and how fast you can do a length of your favourite stroke, but then those are the 2 main uses of a digital watch are they not? Over all very happy, although would have been happier if my husband had not have lost his first watch!

Summary: It was great till my husband read the instructions!