Raymond Weil Nabucco Va, Pensiero Watch

I like the deeply engraved Raymond Weil "RW" logo in the crown. The large watch is matched to a black crocodile strap. Price is probably in the $4,000 - $5,500 range when it will be released soon. Last, let me give you one final gem from the press release. "Let the Nabucco Va, Pensiero spirit you away on the wings of freedom." I have decided that these press releases are more or less like Mad Libs when it comes comes down to it. "add brand name here, add adjective here, add animal part here."It does add aesthetic and character to the design, but I feel as though its placement just reaffirms the fact that many Raymond Weil watches are not made for serious watch lovers. And that is OK, we aren't a giant demographic. But satisfy us, and you've pretty much satisfied everyone else as well. Though interestingly enough, Raymond Weil watches are very popular in the US. Probably because of their distribution and comparatively reasonable prices for well-made watches.The Nabucco Va. Pensiero houses a Swiss ETA 7753 automatic chronograph movement. This is basically a modified 7750 with the chronograph subdials in a tri-compax layout and the day of the week indicator removed. The date is still there though. A solid movement that is nothing to be ashamed of. The chronograph pushers are screw down, and there looks to be a helium escape valve on the watch (though I am not really sure why).

Raymond Weil Nabucco Va, Pensiero Watch

I am starting to think that if the person who wrote this was a woman and was on a date, it would go really well for the guy. Really no matter what he was like, she would flatter him and bolster what attributes he had. There would be a lot of "you are exceptionally handsome, and I am not at all resilient to your charms," being thrown around by her.As a design element, Raymond Weil pumps up the tachymeter around the bezel. I mean look how large it is. These are one of the least used features on watches around, and yet the Nabucco watches are designed to make it seem like you'd use a tachymeter (tachometric scale) on a daily basis.Raymond Weil gives the dial an interesting "step" texture that I like. The dial is OK, a bit busy, but still attractive. My main concern are the hands. They blend in with the dial too much. You can't tell in the marketing images, but they don't fare to well in all lighting situations. Raymond Weil should have done the hands in a much lighter tone to contrast with the gray. I bet yellow hands for the time and chronograph subdials would have been cool.The case is 200 meters watch resistant that Raymond Weil is apparently very proud of. This is ultra standard for more timepieces of this type, but they feel as though the watch is "exceptionally resilient and water-resistant."

Raymond Weil Nabucco Va, Pensiero Watch

Though you could buy one and play some Verdi music during a video recorded "un-boxing" session. That would be dramatic enough.The gray tones all over the watch add to the titanium feel, as well as function as Raymond Weil's hat thrown into the gray watch trend. The 46mm case is made from a few titanium pieces and has some interesting intended sides. Style is pretty much standard Nabucco with a few little changes here and there. The dial features three colors of gray. The hour indicators are SuperLumiNova anthracite, while the chronograph frame is a more cement colored gray, contrasting with the dustier toned dial.The major men's watch release from Raymond Weil this year was a new Nabucco (the name sounds too much like Nabisco to me and I think of snacks) Va, Pensiero. The odd, "comma containing" name comes apparently from a famous Verdi chorus. Does this watch remind you of anything Verdi or Opera related? Cause it doesn't for me. Get this, Raymond Weil actually writes this in their press information, the Nabucco Va, Pensiero "exudes the same power and nobility as the great Italian composer's Opera." Wow, I've only seen greater BS while staring at a cow's ass.I hope someone who writes for Raymond Weil got a bonus for that gem of a quote. There is nothing wrong with the sand-blasted titanium watch, but lets not get all operatic here. This is no watch to sing about.

Panerai PAM339 Radiomir Composite Marina Militare 8 Giorni Watch

Plus, it doesn't always look good for men. So these days more and more ceramic is stealthy looking. Panerai calls the finish matte, which it is. The deep brown case in the subtle tone helps keep the 47mm wide size compact looking enough, and the traditional style Panerai case is benefited from the vintage feel of the piece. As high-tech as the watch is, it still feels like a throwback model. Also, the case is water resistant to 100 meters.The matte brown dial of the watch matches the case. Under the sapphire crustal, the dial is pretty Panerai familiar. inset hour markers in SuperLumiNova lume, and a subsidiary seconds dial at 9 o'clock.The watch case, dial, and strap are all brown. They look like aged leather, and the look is pretty good I must admit. The vintage style leather strap is cool and feels high quality with its medium brown tone and contrast stitching. Don't forget the matching brown, Panerai style buckle. According the Panerai, the color of the stitching was meant to match the color of the SuperLumiNova on the watch dial - a little detail that you'd probably need pointed out to you to notice, but the effect works in the watch's aesthetic favor.Popular these days with ceramic is non glossy finish. The Chanel J12 watches of the world got the industry a bit exhausted with ever shiny ceramic.

Review of the Abacus Wrist PDA (AU5005)

Now you're ready to explore the rest of the watch. I'm happy to report that Ifound the Wrist PDA to be very intuitive to use, and convenient to operateone-handed (thanks to the rocker switch). Granted, I do have the advantage of havingused various Palm devices for many years, but I found I was able to operate everyfunction on the watch without once opening the instruction booklet. If you're notfamiliar with the Palm OS, and especially Jot, you will definitely want to takea look through the instruction manual and the various tutorials available on thewatch itself. I can say pretty definitively, though, that anyone interested inowning a watch like this, and who has gotten this far in my review, will have notrouble getting acclimated to the Wrist PDA. Watch ModeThe "watch" portion of the watch (as distinct from the PDA) seems tosimply be implemented as a Palm application. You can select it from the applicationmenu, or you can allow the watch to enter watch mode automatically after a configurabletimeout period. This generally works out fine, especially since the Palm OS displaysthe time in the upper left hand corner so you can still see what time it is evenwhen you're not in watch mode, although I would like to see a shortcut for puttingthe watch back into watch mode when you're done using the PDA. Maybe holding downthe rocker switch button for two seconds, or something like that. The problem isthat the Palm OS doesn't display the date, so if you're in PDA mode and you needto know what day it is, you either have to go into the calendar (not very convenient),or wait for the watch to timeout and go back into watch mode.Once in watch mode, you can select from 11 different watch faces using the rockerswitch. The watch faces range from traditional analog displays to unusual digitallayouts. This is similar to MSN Direct watches' ability to use different faces,and is a very nice touch.I would have liked to see some very basic applications installed to give the watchmore of a traditional watch feel, like an alarm application. Of course, you canset an alarm using the calendar application, but it would be nice if there werea streamlined way of setting an alarm that worked more like a standard watch alarm.Same goes for a countdown timer and a stopwatch application. The A+application by BEIKS provides a stopwatch, and I'm sure other third-party applicationscan be downloaded to provide additional functionality, but it would be nice ifthey were installed right out of the box.The watch produces plenty of beeps and chirps from it's internal speaker duringnormal operation.