ArmitronSport Retro Men's Digital Bracelet Watch, 40/8475

I've been a fan of the old 1970's LED watches made by brands like Pulsar, Hamilton and yes, Armitron since, well, the 1970's. I was a kid then and my family was not wealthy and these were considered luxury watches at the time - they were generally very expensive.Today you can buy fairly faithful reissues of some of the most iconic 1970's LED watches - Hamilton and Bulova make them, for example - and they are still pretty expensive (much less so than they were in the 1970's, though, with inflation taken into account). They're also not very useful relative to most modern watches, digital or otherwise. They usually just tell the time and that's it, but only after you press a button to display it since they do not have always-on displays. So the value isn't great; they just look cool.Or you can buy this. Which is *not* a particularly faithful reissue, but is still a pretty cool watch that definitely at least invokes some of that retro aesthetic, and costs a *lot* less. I think you get a really good value for the money with this watch. Just don't expect it to look like a real 1970's LED display, when the display is on. (Like other LED watches, you do still need to press a button to display the time on this watch.)I got the gold version of the watch, which is the most iconic look from the 1970's to me... gold and red just screams 1970's. The case and bracelet are listed as stainless steel, so they're just gold-toned (as you'd obviously expect for this price). But at least it's not pot metal or zinc or something. It is a pretty lightweight watch, so I wouldn't doubt that the links are hollow and even much of the watch case is empty.But the shape of the case, the color and even the type of bracelet it's using looks perfectly retro. As soon as I put the watch on I said to myself "I remember clasps like this!" I honestly have not used a watch with this kind of fold-over clasp in probably 30 years. I didn't think they made them anymore. It is typical for what I remember from digital watches from the 1980's, though, which is the earliest time I can remember owning a watch. And my early watches were all cheap digital watches.The downside of this style of clasp is that they're not very reliable. All of mine eventually started slipping and would just come undone. But that's with daily wear over a period of time, and I doubt most people will be wearing this watch every day. The upside of the clasp is that it's very easy to adjust. Just stick your fingernail under it, pull up the tab and move it, then push the tab back down.The watch is water resistant to "between 165 and 330 feet" according to the literature that comes with the watch, which is kind of a weird way of saying it's water resistant to 165 feet. (If you're *not sure* beyond that, then you're at risk of ruining the watch, which makes any further depth moot.) But that's still pretty good for a $50 digital watch like this. My Breitling that cost many times more than this watch will not go that deep.So, the one criticism I have of the watch, if you can call it that, is that the display just does not look like a 1970's LED display. It's kind of a modern interpretation of one, with much bigger digits and what looks like an artificial glow around the digits. I have a feeling there's just a full LED-backlit LCD display under the red "crystal" (it's some sort of plexiglass, which actually is 1970's-accurate), and there's just a little software program in there to display time on it. I have nothing to back this up but that is what it looks like to me - the fact that shining a light through the crystal only shows a sea of black backs that up, since with other LED watches you normally would see the board and the segmented digit display. This display does not look like individual segmented digits. It looks like a tiny screen running a "watch face" app that just looks the way they've programmed it to look.Again, it's a $50 watch, the watch is physically very cool looking, and it is as functional as you'd expect. It tells the time, it tells the date with a second button press, and the display it does have also looks very different from a regular digital watch. I'm not gonna moan too much about it not looking exactly like a real LED watch that costs 15 times as much. I knew that going in anyway, based on the official pics here.The one other thing I should point out is that weirdly, like some others have said in other reviews, my watch did not seem to be *quite* "new". I don't think it had ever been worn before but it looked like it was displayed somewhere. It has one of those watch boxes cut into two "triangles" so you can open it, nest the two halves and display the watch at the proper angle, then the store clerk would just put the two halves of the box back together when selling it. My box was open like that, so clearly was done intentionally since the two halves of the box would not randomly nest themselves. The shipment just came in a non-padded rubber envelope and consequently the exposed and unclasped watch had come fully out of the box and was just flopping around in the envelope. Luckily it does not seem to have been scratched or anything. There were still *two*(!) protectors on the crystal, so that's another thing to be aware of. If it looks weird after taking the first one off, you still have another one to peel.

I have a nice watch collection (about 30+ wrist watches) and I'm always with one eye open for something new and unique. I came across this interesting watch in a YouTube clip and what caught my eye was he red led numbers. Unlike modern digital watches, this one has a led screen, a technology that was common in the first era of digital watches.This one is a new one, of course and the maker is making them with led screens in various colors - red, green, blue, etc. Red is the classic one and this is the one I got.Another unique thing about the screen - most of the time it's dark and you need to press one of the buttons to see the time. Pretty cool!

It is so lite that you can hardly notice you have it on! Nice display, visible during nite or day! The only aspect I cannot know yet is battery duration.

The Armitron Sport Retro Men's Digital Bracelet Watch (40/8475) in silver with blue display combines vintage charm with modern functionality. Its clear LED display, durable stainless steel bracelet, and 50M water resistance make it a stylish and reliable choice. A great watch for everyday wear!

Great remake of a classic

What is there to say? I love this watch. It’s comfortable to wear and people ask about it. Get it when on sale.

In 1976, my birthday fell on a Sunday and I had to wait 18 interminable hours for Monday morning to arrive so my uncle could drive me to G. Fox and Co. in Hartford where I could spend my birthday money on the greatest thing ever. A Texas instrument’s Model 500 LED digital watch! Sure, it only showed the time for three seconds after one pushed the button on the right side, and sure it took two batteries that only lasted a few months (8 if you were lucky), and, sure, it had no advanced features like a stop watch, a countdown timer, or the ability to tell you the time on Guam, but it was a modern Marvell! The batteries in my watch didn’t last three months because I wore them out staring at the red glow of the light emitting diodes over and over. The Armitron Griffy is supposed to help you recapture that wide-eyed magic. It does that…sort of.Don’t misunderstand me, this is a fine watch especially considering the cost. It is comfortable, durable, has a better-than-average water resistance rating for a watch of it’s kind, and it is attractive. But it misses the retro mark it is aiming for by being much better than the watch it is celebrating. I enclosed two photos of the Armitron LED digital watch, one from 2022 and one from the late seventies. The modern watch (the Griffy) has a display so bright I failed to snap a picture of it that didn’t show a halo around the numbers. Whereas, the original had the glowing, wire-frame, look that cast a glow on the circuitry in the background masked by the dark red acrylic of the crystal. As far as I can tell, both of these watches accomplish the same thing, accurate time keeping and the ability to showcase the seconds and the date after pressing the one button in a specific sequence but the new watch does this with far too much spit and polish.I have two other retro watches, a Timex LCA and a Casio Databank, and they do exactly what their progenitors did. In fact, the light on these watches is, in both cases, a rather weak-kneed LED bulb that is barely capable of lighting up half the screen after the sun goes down. The Casio features the ability to enter up to 25 phone numbers or appointments in a way , that in the face of what my smartphone can do, is quaint. And the Timex has a digital/analog display that was cutting edge and fashionable when Roger Moore wore it (his was actually a Seiko) in the movie “Octopussy” in 1983.When compared to the science-fiction like wonders of the 21st century, these watches are trinkets not unlike those one finds in a gum ball machine. But that is the essence of nostalgia. At least for me. So, in conclusion, this watch will look good on your wrist and it will give you time accurate to the second in blazing LED glory, and do it all for less than $40. There is retro magic here, it’s just not that strong.