I'm only doing a mini review of the Casio G-Shock GW-1310 because it is almost identical to the G-Shock GW-1100 that I reviewed late last year with just a few subtle differences. Before reading what's different between the two watches, you should probably check out that review first, if you haven't already. Here's a quick recap of the features the two watches have in common:

• Solar powered.
• Atomic timekeeping.
• World time.
• Five daily alarms.
• Auto-repeating countdown timer.
• Stopwatch.
• Water resistant to 200 meters, or 600 feet.
• Shock resistant.
• Scratch-resistant mineral crystal.

(Check out the GW-1100 review for a much more detail description of these features.)

The GW-1310 is a newer watch, and has been updated in the following ways:

Seiko continues to build amazing watches on top of their innovative new Spring Drive system. One of the latest is the Seiko Marinemaster GMT. I almost posted nothing but a picture of this watch because I think the mere sight of it says it all: it is big, beautiful, durable, and simultaneously both modern and classic.

I have an old Seiko titanium Kinetic Scubamaster which is one of my favorite watches in the world, and one of the things I really like about this family of watches is the amount of functionality Seiko packs into them. The Marinemaster has a 24-hour hand for tracking time in a second time zone, but rather than putting the hours for the second time zone on the bezel like most GMT watches do, the numbers are actually inside the bezel, around the perimeter of the dial. This leaves the bezel free for your standard dive time functionality, which means you get a GMT and a diver all in one. Of course, this makes the watch slightly less flexible purely as a GMT watch since the hours are typically marked on the bi-directional rotating bezel so that you can easily check times in other time zones (rotating the bezel clockwise takes hours off the second time zone while rotating it counterclockwise adds hours), however if you don't need the additional GMT flexibility, it's nice having the diver functionality, instead.

Features of the Seiko Marinemaster GMT:

The new Seiko Milemarker is an interesting combination of modern and classic technologies. On the modern side, the Milemarker has a 10 year battery, perpetual calendar, and an extremely accurate quartz movement which deviates less than 20 seconds per year (yes, that's per year, not per month). The more classic technologies include a map wheel and a manual compass.

The map wheel works by allowing you to trace routes along any map that has a scale, then calculate the distance between the two points. Not exactly a GPS, but then again, no batteries or satellites required. The compass works in conjunction with the 24-hour hand and the rotating bezel. Point the 24-hour hand toward the sun, and the 12 o'clock position will be pointing roughly north. This is definitely a watch for hikers and orienteers who like to do things the old-fashioned way, but with a certain amount of style.

Features of the Seiko Milemarker include...

Casio continues its foray into the world of women's fashion. Late last year, I wrote about Casio's introduction of the square Baby-G series, and now they are marketing to fashion-conscious women once again with the new Futurist. I have to admit, when I first saw a watch by Casio called the Futurist, I started envisioning things like GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, and GSM, so I was a little surprised to basically find just a lot of hot pink. But I think the idea of combining fashion and technology is a worthy pursuit. I believe Casio feels they have the technology part down (see my article entitled Has Casio Perfected the Digital Watch?), so now they are repackaging that technology in a way that will appeal to a market which, in the US, anyway, is dominated by companies like Fossil, Swatch, and Guess.

Futurists are cute little watches. Since I'm not likely to write very eloquently about women's fashion, I'll quote Casio's marketing team, instead:

The ultimate statement in fashion with a retro style will make it a popular choice amongst style leaders. Futurist - colourful and stylish, perfect for any day, any outfit - a choice of ten colours! The Futurist comes with sidebars that colour co-ordinate with the LCD screens, be colour co-coordinated all the time.

Features of the Futurist include alarm, stopwatch, dual time, and an electroluminescent backlight.

View the Tissot High-T photo album.

Up until now, I had reviewed SPOT watches from all the MSN Direct watch manufacturers (Swatch, Fossil, Abacus, and Suunto) except Tissot. And now that I have finally had a chance to put the Tissot High-T through its paces, I can honestly say that I have saved the best for last. There are things about all the SPOT watches out there that I like, but the Tissot High-T is by far the highest quality, most feature-rich, and best looking. At $725 retail (and very few discounts to be found), it's also the most expensive, but this is definitely a case where you get what you pay for.

Note: I'm not going to cover the MSN Direct service in detail in this review. For a very detailed overview of the MSN Direct service (including screenshots), see my review of the Swatch Paparazzi.

Before I break down the features of the Tissot High-T, I'm going to lead with a little watch-related anecdote. Part of my interest (some call it an obsession) with watches is in some ways a search for perfection. I am much less interested in the volume of watches in my collection than I am with the quality of those watches, and how close each watch comes to my vision of perfection. So one day, I decided to try to define my vision of perfection for several different types of watches. In the bulky, digital, geeky category, this is what I came up with:

The Swiss Army ST 5000 is one of the most sophisticated and unique digital compass watches I've seen. First of all, there's a small LCD above the 6 o'clock position which displays the user's numeric heading (I have a Casio ProTrek with a digital compass that displays your heading, but my Tissot T-Touch does not). It will also display magnetic north in addition to the wearer's bearing, and allow you to lock that bearing into memory in order to keep you on track. There is a 5-point LED system which will indicate any necessary course corrections, and since it uses LEDs (light-emitting diodes) rather than LCDs, you can use the system to navigate in the dark. The watch has a rotating inner bezel which is divided up into 360 degrees in 15 degree increments, and there's even a built in spirit level (a little bubble encased in liquid) to help you keep the watch level in order to optimize precision.

In 1969, Seiko introduced one of the most disruptive technologies in the history of watchmaking: the quartz movement. Quartz movements are more accurate than automatic or mechanical movements, generally less temperamental, and are far cheaper to produce. Since then, the Japanese watchmaker has continued to innovate and help the industry evolve with inventions like the kinetic watch, the kinetic auto relay, and now, the Spring Drive.

To understand the significance of the Spring Drive, it probably helps to have a little background on more conventional watch movements.

Mechanical Watches

Mechanical watches contain a main spring, the tension from which drives the watch. The main spring is wound by hand (usually by twisting the crown), at which point it slowly unwinds at a regular rate over the course of a couple of days. Mechanical watches use devices call escapements which provide the friction necessary to cause the main spring to unwind at a rate consistent with units of time (otherwise the main spring would simply unwind all at once). Escapements are the most intricate, delicate, and expensive components of mechanical and automatic watches.