Let me start out by saying this: I am a hopeless watch collector. The bigger the size and the more nifty options they offer the better. I am also VERY partial to Casio products specifically because of my past history owning many models and their incredible durability.With that said, I have been (as of late, anyway) collecting Altimeter/Barometer/Digital-Compass watches, mostly from the VERY well made Suunto Observer, X-Lander, X6HR and the really BIG GPS Suunto X9, along with the HighGear Axis and Summit models and when I discovered Casio manufactured a model that also offers several of the same options, I knew I had to have it. I wanted the Titanium model, and almost wish I had spent the extra $ (which really wasn't that much extra, by the way) but the rubber strap version is still great and quite durable.
Initial reaction was a VERY NICE looking instrument. I am particularly happy that Casio went with a mineral crystal lens rather than something cheaper. It IS large (but still smaller than my X-Lander and virtually tiny compared to the Suunto X9) but is surprisingly lightweight and comfortable on my wrist. I own 2 other Casio Solar powered watches so picking up a 3rd watch that I can enjoy without worrying about battery replacement was a very nice plus.
It wasn't until I sat down to calibrate the watch that I decided this would be a 4-star review instead of 5. As I mentioned before, owning several other Altimeter/Barometer/Digital-Compass watches, I was rather familiar with how to do this, and maybe it was ignorance, but I stupidly thought that this particular model would be calibrated in much the same way...NOT SO. Both Suunto and HighGear make it so simple a totally in-experienced person can calibrate the compass and the altimeter with ease. With the Casio Pathfinder (at least with this particular model) you need a separate compass in order to correctly set the internal digital-compass which is ridiculously complicated when compared with the other watches I mentioned. One item I DID like was how you can adjust the temperature reading to compensate for your own body heat, which affects pretty much every watch I am familiar with that has this feature.
One other small item that bugged me was the day, month and year feature at the bottom of the screen being backwards -- at least for us Americans who are used to Day/Month/Year rather than Year/Month/Day. It can throw you a bit -- until you get used to it.
The Barometer graph is useful when keeping track of weather trends (although the HighGear Axis & Summit will go one step further and give you an actual weather icon predicting the next day's weather, whether cloudy, sunny or rainy it shows up right on the screen. So even if you don't fully understand how to read Barometric trend, the watch does it for you -- really slick) and when I compared it with my other watches, I noticed it seemed to be right on the money each time.
The Digital Compass, while a pain in the arse calibrate is easily the coolest looking. Casio has virtually perfected how to project a slightly see-thru LCD image above the regular watch image which gives you all the necessary functions of a normal compass. I give Casio HIGH marks just for how good it looks. LOW marks for how difficult it was to calibrate, and I imagine I may have to do some additional adjusting as I put it to actual use.
The Altimeter, as with ALL watches like this is totally at the mercy of the weather. As weather patterns abruptly change, so too can the altitude reading. I understand Nike has an Altimeter watch which compensates for this and gives extremely accurate readings, but I'll wait to comment on that until after I get one (which I probably will sooner or later). This is only slightly annoying for someone like me who uses my altimeter only sparingly, I can see this could be a HUGE problem for the average Hiker or Mountain Climber, or worse yet, Base Jumper. But since this seems to affect pretty much ALL Altimeter watches in the same way, I suppose the problem is moot for me, but not necessarily for YOU.
As with pretty much everything you purchase, doing your homework will ensure you will not waste your money on something you don't need, or worrying about purchasing something with a bad track record. I would imagine I fall somewhere in the middle. Other than the calibration pain, I feel this is a nice electronic gadget which I will no doubt enjoy for years to come.
