Timex Men''s T5E901 Ironman Watch

I just received the T5E901 Ironman Triathlon watch. It seems like a nice watch for the price. Being an aging baby boomer, I appreciate the large, easy to read numerals. I am a little disappointed with the Indiglo night display. I was expecting it to be easier to see in the dark. That was my main reason for purchasing a new watch as the night light on my 20-year old Casio no longer works. UPDATE: I am very disappointed with the quality of the band. I''ve had to replace it twice in 5 years. Unfortunately, the generic bands don''t fit properly and I am forced to buy the overpriced Timex band.

Watch works very well. Have had it for a few years. Band keeps breaking after 1 to 3 months which was getting expensive not to mention annoying. However when I complained to Timex they suggested a metal link band as a replacement to the resin band, which solved the problem. It looks great too.

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My husband has worn this exact kind of Ironman watch for about 10 years. He got his first one a decade ago as a gift from my mother, and since then has had 2 replacements, the most recent being one I got him for Christmas this year. He wears the watch primarily to work in a factory, so it gets banged up quite a bit. If he didn''t wear it to work, the watch would last much longer.

This version of the Ironman watch is an improvement over the last one he got a few years ago. There''s now a way to toggle the options on the watch on or off, so you don''t have to scroll through all options every time you want to set just one. There are 3 alarms while the previous version had 2, and my husband prefers this kind of Indiglo rather than the older kind. The only problem with the watch is the band. It was the weak spot in the 2 previous watches my husband wore, breaking long before the watch itself broke.

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I bought this to replace the current orange triathlon "sleek". That watch had nice functionality but its buttons were too stiff (really) and it drove me absolutely nuts.

This watch may not be quite as pretty as the sleeks but otherwise I''m very pleased with it. For those familiar with the sleek this one differs in the following ways:

1) Buttons actually work (wow!)

2) 30 instead of 50 laps (can still store them)

3) No interval timer. I never used this anyway. Since the count-down timer can be set to repeat every time it fires (or not; this is an option) I never understood the point of the interval timer. It seems Timex didn''t anyway, so it''s gone. I continue to use the timer function on a daily basis for anything from workouts to reminding me to turn something off in, say, 20 minutes.

4) The three alarms have a slightly different tone. There is still the 5 minutes "snooze" if you don''t turn the alarm off. After 5 min it will fire again one more time.

5) Occasion function is on this watch but was not on the others. You can choose from about a dozen occasions (bill, gift, etc.) and assign one to a single day. It will then fire that day at 8:00.

6) When you stop and reset the timer the reset is instantaneous. There is still a "hold to reset" on the chrono, but it never made sense on the timer and was a slight annoyance. In this case they have removed it, awesome. Can reset it instantly.

7) Indiglo is a blue instead of green tone. This works perfectly in dark. There is only a very thin spectrum of early evening in which perhaps you cannot see the watch well enough without indiglo but with it turned on it''s not bright enough. I know others have complained about this, but it''s never been a problem for me and as you can tell by this, my third review of timex ironman watches, I am pedantic about them.

Other notes, this watch still has the "time 2" for another time zone (I''ve never used it). You can still change the chrono format so that laps are on the top vs bottom, for example, and there are still two lines (so that you can see total time plus current laptime at the same time). The battery can be replaced (I presume; I did it on an earlier triathlon watch successfully) but the watch strap is not replaceable; if it breaks it will deem the watch worthless. They are pretty strong straps, though, and this one is stronger (plus stays put better) than the black triathlon sleek from around four years ago (Which can still be bought in some places).

This watch is not quite as pretty as the sleek but otherwise has a perfect complement of functionality. I''ve not taken it underwater yet except for in the shower. My watch never comes off my wrist.

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At first, this seems like a fine sports watch. Big, easy to read numbers, easy to use lap and timer features, and of course the nice indiglo face. And a year warranty is always nice. But then, not too long after that warranty is up, the band breaks. So you have to drop twelve bucks on a new one. Then you try to attach the new band. Forget it. It can''t be done. Period. You can try everything imaginable to get those spring bars into the holes. Cajole it, curse it, throw the bloody thing across the room after an hour of wasted effort, but you are NOT getting that new band onto the watch.

The only solution is to go to a watchmaker and pay who knows how much so that he will shoulder the inexcusably aggravating burden of getting the damn strap onto the still perfectly functioning watch face. It''ll probably cost at least five bucks. Then, maybe another year or so after you''ve done this, the band will break again. So every year or two you''re dropping another twenty bucks or so for the purchase and attachment of another new band.

So who cares if the watch face itself can do all sorts of things, and will never break down, and the initial price isn''t too bad. In the end, due to a badly made strap, this watch is just a money pit, reliable only in the sense that you can count on it breaking on an annual basis.

I had another ironman watch before this, and used it for over ten years. It too had a band that broke more than once, but each band lasted several years. And the replacement ones were easy to attach. The band for this joke breaks more frequently and can''t be replaced without outside help. How could this obvious problem get past the designers? I believe that it was designed to quickly break and be aggravating to fix, as this will encourage the individual to just buy a new watch. Well I am buying a new watch, as I''ve had it with this thing. But it will not be a Timex, nor will any other watch I ever buy.

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