MTM Hawk Watch

There was a point in my life where I didn't care much what time it was and being on time for an appointment or late by a few minutes didn't matter much. Then came the Army and a couple decades of police work and fatherhood, etc. Time matters. Being on time matters. Having a device on your wrist that keeps accurate time and will take all the abuse you throw at it matters. At several trade shows I'd seen the MTM (Multi-Time-Machine) watch booth and the watches looked cool but I'd never had the opportunity to test one out. I've had that opportunity now and am suitably impressed. Here's why.

First off you need to understand that while watches are designed these days to perform a great many functions, to me they - first and foremost - have to keep accurate time. How accurate? Well, the more accurate they are the better, but truth be told most of us can live quite easily with a watch that is off as much as a minute per month. While that sounds like a lot to many watch enthusiasts, it's realistic. Reality is also that modern quality watches usually have no trouble keeping time within a few seconds each month - or even each year. So, how do you measure the watch's accuracy?

When I first received it for testing I made sure it was charged (more about that in a minute). Then I got online to The Official U.S. Time Clock website (linked below). I selected my time zone and the website provides the current correct time to within 1/10th of one second. I set the watch to that time when I got it more than a month ago. As I prepared to write this review after all the other testing was done (detailed momentarily) I checked the watch's time against that website time. The watch was off less than a second as far as I cculd tell. Just prior to publishing this I checked again and it's still within one second of The Official U.S. Time Clock. That's accurate enough for me.

Now let's talk about some of the down and dirty design features of the Hawk. First off, it ain't little. I mean, this is a pretty big watch. The case size is 42mm not including the crown and it's 13mm thick. I don't have delicate wrists and this watch is almost as long top to bottom - pin to pin - as my is wide. Weighing in at 3.5 ounces it isn't particularly light either - I mean, that's almost a quarter pound - for a watch! It is listed as water resistant to 330 feet or 100 meters (however you prefer to say it) although I didn't test it to that depth. The "glass" of the watch is listed as tempered scratch resistant crystal (and everything I put it through didn't scratch it). There is a uni-directional ratcheting bezel that has large numbers marked for 15, 30, 45 and 60 minute time passage. I consider it more than suitable for diving. The watch was delivered on a nylon strap in a water tight box with its recharger stand. Let me talk about that for a minute.

Because of the other features of this watch - which we'll discuss momentarily - it is impractical to have to replace the battery in this watch. It is FAR more practical to have to recharge it. That presents a challenge. I mean, think about it. How do you charge your digital camera? You plug it in. That port in the camera prevents it from being water tight. If you bypass that challenge by putting in a rechargeable battery pack that you have to take out to recharge you solve the problem, BUT... how practical is that in something the size of a watch? I don't know about you all but I'm not comfortable taking apart my watch every 30 to 90 days to charge it and then count on my own abilities to get it back together water tight.

The MTM solution is rather revolutionary: the watch is charged electromagnetically by placeing it on top of the charging stand which does plug in. I like that a WHOLE lot better than having to plug in the watch or recharge a battery pack or - as is the case with some watches - returning it to a service center for a battery replacement. Can you imagine doing that quarterly? Me neither.