I’m sure we’ve all seen the magazine ads that showcase watches that you might be tempted to simply dismiss as “tacti-cool”, rather than something fit for for true tactical use. Today, we’re going to take a look at a watch from a company that is used to putting their pieces into military and police duty.
The watch in question was provided by MTM Special Ops, whose various models are rugged and have the ability to stand up to the abuse; specifically, we were provided with a sample of their Black Falcon Titanium model.
As you can guess by the name of the watch, it is made from titanium. This provides a 30% weight savings over the steel model (6 oz vs 9 oz.) In practice, this is still not what you would call a light watch (it’s actually slightly heavier than one of my heaviest steel divers). That said, I never felt like it was weighing my wrist down.
Now, on the tech that packed into the watch. To start with, it has a rechargeable battery. Rather than relying on some hokey connector, it actually relies on a induction charger (provided). This is a very cool bit of tech that helps to preserve the lines of the watch. Once fully charged, it should be good for about two months of use.
How do you know it should be charged? Just look to the second hand! When fully charged, it will move at the normal one tick per second. When the battery level is low, it will change to moving once every two seconds; when you’re about to run out of juice, it drops to moving once per four seconds. Of course, once it stops, you’re out of power. Either which way, you’ve got a power gauge that doesn’t clutter up the face, which I very much appreciated.
Now, two months of normal use on a battery doesn’t sound like much at first. And on most watches, that would seem like much too short of a lifespan. However, this watch has another trick up it’s sleeve – that we’ll cover in part two of the review.
