Timex Men’s Expedition Camper Strap Watch

I dislike the strap. I bought a NATO strap but its thickness meant it could not fit in between the lugs.

Summary: This is a review for the black “Camper” style Expedition watch with a black Velcro Fast Wrap band. This style is unique from the other Expedition Acadia watches offered by Amazon in that it has water resistance of 100M instead of 50M for the other models. I have seen some non-Amazon reviews showing this same black Timex Expedition watch with 50M water resistance, but mine is 100M. I believe that there is also a white dial version of this watch, too, that is available on Amazon, but it is listed separately from the other Acadia models.

A quick rundown of watch details: 38mm resin case, quartz movement, 100M water resistant, Indiglo, push crown at 3 o’clock with modest protectors flanking the crown, date complication, hackable second hand, stainless steel screw down case back, Fast Wrap Velcro band, black dial, white Arabic numerals, small military time designations, flush acrylic face, white lumed minute and hour hands, and red second hand. All in all, a very simple watch design.

Pros: Easy to read, durable, light weight, the second hand lines up with the dial markers, accurate, very comfortable band, excellent water resistance, Indiglo backlighting feature is excellent

Cons: None, really. If I had to come up with some, I would say average lume on hands, will eventually have to replace the battery

Review: The first thing I would say is that if you can still find one of these and you are in the market for a solid, dependable military-style field watch, stop reading this and buy it now while you can. At 30-ish dollars, you can’t go wrong and there isn’t much to lose.

I have always been hard on watches. I have a digital Casio G-Shock, but I wanted a simple, analog field watch (without all the *stuff* on it) as a different style of beater watch. After some searching and looking at a lot of different watch reviews online (including reviews from soldiers who purchased Timex Campers like this one at the PX and wore them in the field), this popped up on Amazon and I purchased it.

I have had it for a little over a month now and it has been a faithful companion during that time. I don’t go out of my way to abuse my possessions, but this Timex hasn’t been coddled, either. It’s gone to work with me in an office setting, but it also does real yardwork with me, I have taken it hiking, I have submerged it in water, I workout with it on, and I have had no problems with it at all. It has gotten a little scuffed up and dirty, but it cleans up nicely, including the Velcro. It has gotten a few good bumps and it’s just fine. The face isn’t rounded and doesn’t stick out above the surface of the watch, so it won’t get scratched up so easily. When it does invariably get scratched though, it should be easy enough to polish out the blemishes.

For what it’s worth, if you are looking for a comfortable band, particularly if you have a larger wrist like I do (8″), the Velcro band is really nice. It fits perfectly every time, it isn’t scratchy at all, it dries out quickly, it stays secure at all times, and it never feels sticky like the regular resin-type bands do. I wasn’t sure if I would like it, but now I’m not sure if I would want to go back to another resin band.

The watch has been fairly accurate. As soon as I received it from Amazon, I set it using http://www.time.gov. During the time that I have had it, it has lost only four seconds. That’s not too bad at all. With a quartz movement, I didn’t expect any less. It is easy to set both the time and date. The second hand is hackable, so synchronized time-setting is possible.

The uncluttered dial is easy to read. The numbers are crisp. The hands are clear. The date window doesn’t require a second look. One of the characteristics of this watch that will please some of the more exacting watch owners out there is the fact that the second hand movement lines up with the markers as the second hand moves around the dial. Some watches have analog movements where the second hand fails to properly land on the markers, but not this one!

The watch isn’t too large, so it slips nicely under one’s sleeve, but yet it isn’t so small that it looks like a kid’s timepiece. Even as a bigger, taller guy with a larger wrist, the watch still looks appropriate on me. It is also very light and I forget that I’m wearing a watch.

There really aren’t too many things that I don’t like about the watch. The lume on the hands isn’t outstanding. It’s fine, but what lume it has is not going to garner awards. The hour and minute hands have lume, but there is no lume on the dial or second hand. That said, it is important to remember that this is not a dive watch. The Indiglo works very nicely though. In absolute darkness, the Indiglo function works perfectly.

Having to replace the watch battery someday will stink, but only because I worry about losing water resistance due to improper battery and O-ring installation. I like the watch enough that I will probably just pay to send it to Timex, have them replace the battery, give it a once over, and then ship it back to me. I would rather have the manufacturer do it right than have a jeweler screw it up. Yeah, I know, it’s only a $30 watch, but it’s a really well-designed $30 watch and I like it. It feels like somebody took time to engineer this watch right. It may sound kind of silly, but it’s like somebody actually cared when this watch was being designed and built. It is a lot like driving past a simple, old building in town that has a special architectural character to it. It just looks and feels like it was thoughtfully designed to do something very specific. That’s what this watch is like.

That leads me to my last point. I may be wrong, but I don’t think Timex makes this model anymore. Why not? They make a lot of other ones that are prettier, have GPS, can pay for groceries, or whatever, but they aren’t going to last like this one. This is a tremendous watch and blows away all of the other Expedition models. Why is it that such a great watch like this gets discontinued? Is it because it is too old-fashioned? Is it boring? Nobody bought it? Well, if it pops up for sale on Amazon, and you’re in the market for this simple, camper-style watch, you should plunk down your $30 or so and get it. Many times, the old-fashioned, “boring” ones make the best life partners.

I use the watch for over a year now and I’m very satisfiwd. They are small and light so perfect fit for skinny wrist. I’m surfing and swimming with them and never had any problem with water. There are just 2 small things to consider:
– The tick sound is quite loud and might be disturbing for some people
– The strap is made of fabric and fabric gets longer and loose when wet (swimming, shower etc) and then again tight after drying

My confession first. I am a watch nut. I own over 40 mechanical wrist watches currently and 90% if them are over $300 each, and many over $1000. But I always have two quartz watches I kept in my watch box to which all my luxury watches synchronize with. One of them is the Tissot T-Touch. And the other a Timex Ironman 30 from the early 1990s, which still keeps perfect time after close to 20 years of use, and it actually held up quite well cosmetically too. So needless to say, Timex to me presents superb quality and value.

This camper expedition, is my second Timex after some 20 years and many expensive watches later. Of course, comparing it to a high end swiss mechanical will be asking too much, but I believe my expectation was reasonable and sound.

The Good

The matte resin case feels light weight but durable. The grey case offers a good contrast with the black military style dial. Acrylic crystal is sufficient for normal use, but it surely will be scratch from clumsy wrist movements. The band offers a very militaristic olive drab and black theme. Stainless buckle and rubber retainer. Modern size at close to 40mm case size. (Amazon got the case size wrong) I simply love the way this watch looks. Especially at a mere $27 shipped. The retail packaging and instruction are very detailed as well.

The Bad

Timex is known not only for its bargain prices, but it is supposed to be terrific at quality control. This camper, however, have lots of issues.

Biggest problem comes from the canvas strap. There is a overlapping part of the canvas that holds the buckle in place. The hard adhesive has leaked out from the manufacturing process and produce very uncomfortable edges along the inner side of the strap, right where the center of the wrists contacts the watch. That is extremely annoying if you were to wear the watch for any period of time.

There are two separate plastic pieces where the strap meets the case, that were designed to add a bit of style and comfortable angle for the strap. But unfortunately one of them on my watch came slightly deformed. The piece looks as though it was taken off the plastic molding too quickly while it was still warm and surfaces was not even.

Last, a common problem for budget watches. The second hand doesn’t line up exactly to the makers. This is an easy fix by opening the watch and manually affix the second hand again. But annoying none the less.

All this still doesn’t make this Timex a bad deal. It is very functional and keeps good time like any other quartz out there. But it does have a few issues for those of you who are thinking about it and have not made the decision.

Best luck watch hunting ~

el producto es acorde con lo especificado y la relación calidad precio optima

Works great and good price.

This is a great light-weight, low profile watch for the outdoors. It’s inexpensive, looks nice, easy to read. I slid a $10 compass on the band and I’m happy as a clam. It’s nothing fancy but fancy isn’t always the goal. My one criticism is that the cheaper Timex’s like this don’t have a great indiglo light. It covers about 9/10ths of the watch face. It still gets the job done buck looks kind of tacky when you use it.