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Comment by RedShift1 | Hacker News Reader

So you spent 100 dollars on F-91W's over 30 years. 50 dollars could have gotten you a watch that would have lasted 30 years.

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Unless you lost it or damaged it (drop, water, excessive scratches, etc, etc.) or it fell too much out of style. I suspect most 50 dollar watches don't last anywhere near 30 years in real life usage.

A gshock would very likely last 30 years in pretty much any usage situation.

But you’d have also spent 30 years wearing a watch that looked like a ten year old was asked to design a super hero watch

Beg your pardon? G-Shocks come in a wide variety of designs and price ranges. At a glance, mine could easily pass for an F-91W - a cheap, digital watch about as far from pretence as it is possible to get. Durable, radio sync'ed, solar cell driven, and watertight down to some ridiculous level of pressure. Just about the most functional piece of hardware I have ever owned. The unflashiest of black boxes, just there when I need it, shows me the time to the second every time, no discussion about it. And it doubles as a signaler, a very neat expression of who I am or at least would like to be. I wouldn't swap it for a Rolex even if somebody gifted one on me.

> And it doubles as a signaler, a very neat expression of who I am or at least would like to be.

This is a lot of weight for a mass-produced, low-cost piece of consumer electronics to bear.

It's not a hard weight to bear when the intended signal is "I'm a utilitarian who prefers wearing non-flashy, reliable, mass-produced, low-cost consumer electronics"

Of course, every ten years you have to replace the battery, which you can do yourself, w/ an easy-to-find part. I wonder where today's Apple Watches will be in 10 years.

This is what I wear: https://slimages.macys.com/is/image/MCY/products/6/optimized...

In concession, this is far more attractive than any G-Shock I have seen before, and indeed if you put a gun to my head and forced me to wear a GMW-B5000D-1ER I would consider it only a minor inconvenience.

Looks to be a DW5600BB, I own one of these. It's quite durable but maintains an nice understated appearance. I wore it non-stop for about a year then migrated to an Apple Watch. The G-SHOCK keeps on ticking as a backup watch, though.

You're the real super hero for this comment.

"Lost it" is a real life usage situation for a watch and we don't yet have watches that return back to the owner on command.

I've never had a watch last more than 10 years. My dad has an Omega that lasted over 30 years, but it was a lot more than $50.

> 50 dollars could have gotten you a watch that would have lasted 30 years.

You're not counting new batteries.

It's true that you can buy a tool to change your own. But a small, rarely used tool is very hard to keep track of.

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