digital watches

Ask any outdoor enthusiast what manufacturer they'd trust when it comes to precision instruments and the answer would probably be Suunto. Their slogan is "Replacing Luck" and that's very true when you see how accurate their instruments are. Case in point: I recently bought the Suunto X3HR and went hiking up a mountain with a few friends. We reached the summit and hiked to the trig beacon to get an "accurate" indication of how high we were. The X3Hr was spot on (to the metre) while the GPS unit we carried was out by quite a few (and there wasn't a big tree above us or cloudy conditions to affect the GPS signal). Apart from the accuracy of the altimeter, what makes this watch even more useful is the fact that it has a heart-rate monitor, barometer and thermometer. That's in addition to the obvious functions like stop-watch, back-light, etc. If you enjoy spending time outdoors and want to get the most out of it, I'd highly recommend this watch. It takes a little while to get the hang of the functions, but once you do it really opens up a wealth of knowledge as to your performance.
For myself the watch has almost everything I need. When I'm training for runs the heart-rate monitor is incredibly handy and I didn't realise how much it can be an asset to measuring performance. The watch will show you your max heart-rate over the run, the average heart-rate, and the highest altitude you reached. The only drawbacks are that if you want to measure your split times over a long run, the 10-split memory isn't really enough and if you're not yet used to the watch buttons you might press the wrong one and comprimise the data you've gathered. But for the price you'd pay for the X3HR, you'd be hard pressed to find another make of watch that can do the same things. If you are looking at something more advanced, the X6HR might be worth looking into. I was sorely tempted to go for that model when I tried it out in the shop. Self control sucks sometimes.