reddcliffeMost watch lovers like mechanical watches over quartz. Often the reasoning cites how a complicated hand made mechanical mechanism inside the watch offers more satisfaction over a "cheap piece of electronics that costs a a few dollars." Never-mind the fact that most mechanical watch movements that normal people can afford are machine assembled and have no hand craftsmanship. Often quartz watches that are priced higher or at the same level as mechanical watches are described as having "a 15 dollar movement inside a thousand dollar case and bracelet." "You are paying for the case, the bracelet and the name." I've read these comments on watch forums when people have asked why there are not more high end quartz watches, or when people ask others about their opinion on their expensive quartz TAG, rado, ect. Well in this particular case, the ETA 988.333 movement is a 200 dollar movement. It's street price appears to be between 180-200 if you buy just the movement alone. its almost identical to the breitling aerospace movement except this version lacks thermocompensation which gives you accuracy to a few seconds per year. The breitling with essentially the same movement plus thermocompensation costs >$3000. I guess I was just trying to point out this is not an ordinary cheap $15 ronda or ETA quartz, and the asking price of 299 is quite good considering the cost of the movement. The massdrop price is also 40%-50% less than other online retailers and when this watch first came out several years ago, the street price was close to 1000. I don't know why someone would pay that much for functions that timex or casio G shocks can do equally well, but that's what I've learned about this watch in the last couple days.
lobsterI've joined this drop and am looking forward to the watch. One thing that IS lacking on the Victorinox is a backlight for the digital display, as compared to the Breitling.... I think, however, the $2,700 price difference more than compensates (in a non-thermal way!)