A few months ago, we told you about the Timex x Huckberry Ironman Flix, a watch that travelled back in time to a much, much simpler era of fitness/sports watches. No HR or step tracking, no connection to your smartphone, and no rechargeable battery anxiety. A much simpler time, indeed. Since we wrote that first article, we’ve been spending time with one, and are ready to weigh in on the watch.
What is it like?
When you open up the box of the Timex x Huckberry Ironman Flix, you are very definitely pushed back a few decades. It of course has the classic black-and-yellow color scheme that was so prevalent with the Ironman-branded watches, and it’s all set in a slightly silvery case that definitely has the 90s feel. It’s not chromed, no, but it’s not a plain grey either. It’s a hue in the plastic you just don’t see that often now.
And yes, it is a plastic case. You can see clear part lines going around the midpoint of the watch, and that further reinforces that decades-old feel, in my book. I mean, this is the type of watch that I would have expected to be wearing as a teen, and the feel of things is just right. If I had to guess, they either had the original tooling kicking around, or built new off of the original prints, keeping that old feel.
What capabilities does it offer?
Aside from the vintage-ish looks, the Timex x Huckberry Ironman Flix offers a lot of what we’d expect from a modern digital watch. 100-lap chronograph, countdown time, displaying both the main time (and a second time zone) in 12- or 24-hour formats, and 5 alarms. It also has a memo function, where you can store up to 10 entries, with up to 24 characters in each memo. And you’re entering these on the watch itself, so you’re not putting a lot in there, but it’s good to note, say, a locker combination or a phone number.
What’s it like wearing the watch?
When a watch weighs just 36g (as this one does), it absolutely disappears on the wrist. Though it looks and feels like a more compact watch, the 44mm case allows for a decently sized LCD, which means you can easily read the time at a glance. Oh, and if you turn on the auto Indiglo function, that means that bringing your arm up will automatically light up the screen, making it a cinch to see it (and if you’ve not had a watch with Indiglo, it is a treat).
To work through the various functions, the bezel clearly calls out what each of the buttons do. If and when you’re timing things, you’ve got the additional buttons at the base of the display. There is a small learning curve to ride, I’d say, but once you’ve got it down – and you start using the functions you’re the most interested in – you’ll be just fine. While there’s a lot of functionality, these older style of digital watches are fairly intuitive, and fiddling around with the buttons a bit will get you to understand what’s what.
Would we recommend it?
In terms of how it works as the watch, there’s nothing that would prevent us from recommending the Timex x Huckberry Ironman Flix. That said, this is something more fit for a person who remembers that original era of Timex Ironman watches, we’d say. The nostalgia factor, you see. On the other hand, if you just want a basic digital chronograph for yourself (or someone else), then the $109 price tag might feel a bit steep (and we might instead recommend this $40 Timex). However, if you’re feeling those 90s feels, then this one would be a great one to put onto your wrist this summer. If you want to pick one up, they’re available from either Timex or Huckberry.
Details from Timex
