Freestyle USA Recon Watch

This watch by Freestyle USA has a lot of features that I really like in a watch. The Recon watch is a fairly rugged watch that's designed with an outdoor lifestyle in mind. The face of the watch has decent sized numbers so it's easy to see when on the move or in low light. The style I got is fairly subdued in nature.

Here are some of the features of the watch:

1. Time (12/24 hour), day,date display.
2. Second time zone with it's own date display.
3. Backlight which is reversed, meaning the numbers light up instead of the backgound. This gives less of a light signature if using this for mil/LE operations, and also saves on the battery. Once the backlight is activated it will remain lit as long as any button is pushed while the light is still on. This means that you can set different features in the dark and the backlight will remain lit until you stop pushing buttons. I really like this feature in a watch.
   
4. Stopwatch mode with 45 lap memory.
5. Countdown Timer with countdown/stop or countdown/repeat options. Max. time - 24 hours 59 minutes.
6. Water resistant to 100m.
7. Nylon or Polyurethane wrist strap option.
8. "Heat" timer which is a countdown timer with preset times programmed into it. I'm not quite sure what the reason is for this timer other than making setting the countdown timer a little quicker. For me it's a second countdown alarm feature.
9. 3 daily alarms. Each one has it's own alarm sound.
10. English, spanish, french language option.
11. hourly chime
12. option to turn button sound off.
13. Nylon or Polyurethane strap options.
14. Limited lifetime warranty
    

This watch is very comfortable and is mid sized. The band on the watch I tried out is the nylon band. The band is an ok band, but I'm more fond of a rubber band because the nylon has to dry when it gets wet and in the summer time it can retain body odor from sweating. This is a generalization of nylon bands, not anything particular to this model, just my personal opinion on nylon bands. The only problem I've had was that the velcro on the band started to come off. The velcro is a strong velcro, but the stitching ripped through the velcro material and the velcro started to come off. I contacted the company and they covered this under the warranty so I shipped it out to them. A few weeks later I got the watch back and so far the repair has held up.

Durability on the rest of the watch seems pretty good. The face hasn't scratched at all due to the glass crystal face and the raised rubber bezel. The case material hasn't shown any abnormal wear either. Water resistance is also good.

As I said before, I really like the features of this watch. The only thing I'd change would be to get the rubber banded version instead of the nylon banded version. Aside from that this watch has a lot of great features that I like in a watch.

Colors/Options:
Nylon band - Black or Blue
Polyurethane band - Silver/black or Grey

MSRP: $50.00