On 2/12/2014 5:32 AM, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 2/12/14, 8:26 AM, Poco Loco wrote:

Seiko story. Many years back I spent around $375 for a Seiko
'chronometer' with all the bells and
whistles. It worked for a long time, but then one day it died. I
figured it would be very expensive
to fix, so I just set it aside and bought a hundred dollar Swiss Army
watch.

One day I took the Seiko to the shop, thinking it would cost a fortune
to fix. The guy opened it up,
looked, said I had water damage (I swam with it), and it needed a new
movement.

"Oh ****," I'm thinking. "How much?" I ask. He replies, "$62".

Unreal.


SEIKO makes fine timepieces. Just about any electronic SEIKO is more
accurate than the old Rolex living in my socks drawer. My daily watch is
a stainless steel Luminox. The only downside is that when it is time to
replace the battery, you have to send the watch to an authorized repair
center for a new battery and waterproof seals, and to have the insides
of the watch closed under vacuum...or something like that. Grrrrr.

I've got a goldtone SEIKO that's about 25 years old, and runs well, and
a $20 Timex with a really good "nightlight" that also is accurate.

Anyone remember those awful LED watches?

I once worked for a start-up that was acquired by Seiko-Epson and got to
visit their headquarters in Suwa up in the mountains between Nagoya and
Tokyo. They had an impressive manufacturing facility with some simple
models assembled on a completely robotic line that spit out something
like a watch a minute. They were definitely sticklers for quality and
had some good engineers.

My first boss at Motorola had one of these.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-01