Full Review

Whether you’re scaling K2 or just negotiating Knightsbridge can Timex’s "wrist-top adventure instrument" keep you safely on track? We strapped ourselves in to find out. 

The WS4 serves up an altimeter, barometer, compass and thermometer, it's waterproof to 50m, has 100 hour chronograph for serious timings, has a tough rubber casing, INDIGLO night light and all the daily/weekly alarms you could need. It also squeezes in time telling (digital and analogue) and date. 

Impressive, but nothing terribly exciting; the likes of Garmin and Suunto (and Timex) have been knocking out adventure specific watches for years. What makes the WS4 stand out is the screen (WS = Widescreen) and the effortless functionality. For once you can navigate your way around all the functions with ease, even in zero visibility with huge great mittens on. 

The 3.7cm wide screen is split into four sections; there’s a clear analogue dial (shows time at a glance and also compass direction), large bitmapped area that displays names, time, modes, graphs, while a smaller segments displays numbers, lap times, the date, barometric pressure, etc, depending on the menu. Finally a small graphic in the bottom left gives you the temperature and a current weather graphic. 

Lots to take in on one display, but there’s an ocean of space between each graphic making it easy to decipher all the info at a glance. 

Finding and using each feature is also a breeze. The chunky mode button gets you to the altimeter, barometer, etc, and once there the on-screen prompts guide you through each. For example to set-up the compass the top right display asks you to rotate the watch twice before pushing mode to calibrate. 

It’s up to you if you’d find an altimeter/barometer/compass useful but rest assured each worked a treat. The altimeter was accurate (standing on a desk even registered) and the progression graph a great touch. You can set altitude alarms, useful for keeping on track and hitting goals and record how long you’re at a certain height – essential if the oxygen’s getting thin. 

The compass did as it should and was spot on with accuracy while the barometer proved a handy tool. Ignore the sunny/rainy symbols, you can look out the window for that info, but the Hg pressure display and history graphs can really help predict the weather – watch the numbers drop and you know you’ve got bad weather on the way, essential if you’re half way up Ben Nevis or on Bond Street without a brolly. 

We were disappointed by the temperature gauge. It was too influenced by the heat of this reviewer’s wrist to be totally accurate. We had to take it off to get a proper read out. 

In darkness the silver INDIGLO button illuminates the display in easy-reading neon green for about 3 seconds. We found it worked superbly in dark conditions but at half light the original display was often clearer. 

It’s also available in black, blue, yellow, orange, and white for the fashion conscious.

Verdict

We’re impressed by the WS4 but the one thing holding this watch back from greatness is the exact thing that makes it so easy to use: it’s flippin’ enormous. Measuring 5.5cm wide it isn’t heavy but it swamps even the manliest wrist. Pull on your Gore-Tex, strap on the Timex and head for the hills, but don’t (and trust us here) wear it down the pub. 

It’d be harsh to call the WS4 the ‘My First Adventure Watch’ because it’s a serious bit of kit full of useful, potentially life saving widgets, but the huge screen and idiot proof settings mean even a total novice can make the most of the information on display. 

Timex have gone out on a limb with the WS4 design and for out-and-out usefulness they’ve done a great job. The four-zone display gives the wearer a huge amount of information without a lot of fiddly button pushes. Even when you do want to get geeky with graphs and altitude timers most are just one or two presses away. 

Our only gripe – if you wear it with anything other than an all-weather survival suit you’ll look more like an electronically tagged teen than a rugged outdoor adventurer.

Posted by Brad Jerger on August 26th, 2009 

Timex is best known for its IRONMAN series of watches that have a lot of technology built into them for triathletes. Along the same vein, the Timex Expedition series attempts to match the same caliber and recognition with the mountaineering crowd. With the help of mountaineer Conrad Anker, they have created the Timex Expedition WS4 (Wide Screen 4 Function) watch that surpasses any other expedition watch they currently offer on the market in terms of price, functionality, and features. Basically, your gonna get more bang for your buck with this watch.

The first thing you’re going to notice is the size of the watch, but don’t be alarmed. The digital wide screen is the hallmark of the design and creates a watch that looks like it might be too large. However, I found that the size wholly contributed to this cool gadget’s functionality. I have to admit I was a little worried about carrying it on my wrist for days, but it was surprisingly light and comfortable, thanks to its stretchy nylon wrist strap. The size and weight of the watch became a non-issue within minutes of wearing it on the trail.

The WS4’s wide screen is the main feature and has a unique design that sets this watch apart from other watches similar to it. On one screen, you’re able to get information about Time (both digital and analog), Forecast, Temperature, and Date, all in one glance. The displayed text is large and easy to read even at an arms length away. You also have the choice of seeing your altitude or barometric pressure in place of the date. Forecast is an interesting feature that gives a four-to-six-hour prediction of the weather based on the last twelve hours of the barometer’s reading, and displays little user-friendly icons of a sun, cloud, or rain. The one thing that is not on the main screen of the watch is the digital compass. You must select “Compass Mode” in order to use the compass. I would have liked to see the compass on the main screen in some form, which would have been a little more convenient on the trail.

On top of getting most of your functions on the main screen, the WS4 breaks down all of your functions into modes in case you want to get even more information from the Altimeter, Barometer, Compass and Thermometer sensors (such as peak altitude, accumulated altitude, highest barometric pressure, low pressure, and even graphs). The Altimeter and Barometer modes include graphs that chart the changes in altitude/barometric pressure continuously over a 36-hour period. I thought these wouldn’t be particularly useful in terms of data, but I did find myself looking at them quite often just to see how the recorded information changed throughout the day. I found the watch to be extremely accurate and sensitive, sometimes maybe too sensitive. The thermometer seemed to be picking up the body heat from my wrist and added about ten degrees to the temperature reading. More likely than not you wouldn’t normally be wearing this watch directly on your arm in a high altitude environment and I would recommend wearing it on the outside of your jacket, shirt or attaching it to your bag. You can easily just take the watch off if you’re in need of an accurate temperature reading in a warmer environment. I also found that when comparing the Altimeter to a GPS Altimeter reading, they were very close in their readings to each other. The digital compass was also surprising easy to calibrate before my hike.

And yet, after all of these feature, there are even more modes to this watch! Chrono, Review, Timer, Alarm, and Calibration modes are also included. Granted, I’m not going to go into full detail on all of them, but I wanted to highlight a few that are unique, which I have never seen included in a watch before. The Chrono mode and Timer modes function exactly how you would expect and I’m sure some people will find them useful either for training or making sure you are making good time on your trek. The Alarm mode has a nice feature that works with the Altimeter: an alarm that goes off to notify you, should you surpass the set altitude you specifically programmed. The Timer mode can also be set up to track how much time you’ve spent above that altitude as well. The Calibration mode is your one stop place to easily calibrate your watch. You can even set it up to four altitude reference points before your trip and at each point, re-calibrate the watch with one button press if you so desire to have the most accurate data throughout the day. However, this was the only feature on the watch that I couldn’t figure out how to use correctly. I never found the one-button calibration that the instructions were referring to.

The one mode that stood out to me apart from the rest that I think has the most potential to be something really special in the future versions of the WS4 is the Review Mode. This mode works with the Chronograph to track and store data. It’s very simple to use and all you have to do is go to the Chrono mode and press Start at the beginning of your day. The Review function of the watch from that point on will collect data automatically until you decide to stop the Chrono from running. When you go into the Review Mode, you’re going to get fourteen different categories of information collected from the Altimeter, Barometer, and Temperature sensors. Highs, lows, graphs, etc. I really liked being able to see that information at the end of the day and enjoyed telling everyone in my hiking group all of the data I’d collected from our grueling progress. It could be the tech geek in me, but even though this mode isn’t really needed in the watch for functionality, I am glad they added this bonus feature. To improve it, I would have loved to be able to download all of this information onto some software program and get even more details from the graphs. I think it would be a great way to get more use out of the graphs not just to review my hiking progress, but for more statistics to keep at the end of a trip.

There are a lot of functions here and it does sound like a complicated watch. However, I found the WS4 to be simple to use and easy to understand. I think having all of these features is something that truly makes the watch shine and contributes to how well it’s designed. All I had to do is calibrate the watch once in the morning and forget about adjusting it the rest of the day. There was no need to constantly skip through modes to get information because most of it was there on the main screen for me to view. I really got the sense that Timex thought about the design, functionality and what would work best for someone “going out of bounds”, as they put it. Because honestly, when you’re busy climbing a glacier, do you really want to be fussing with your watch?