Marathon 34mm General Purpose Mechanical (GPM) Wrist Watch with Tritium - WW194003

Awesome basic field watch!!There are a lot of companies that talk about being tough and having tactical or military grade specifications without really being anything more than a fashion accessory. This watch is not a fashion accessory although it does look good in my opinion.Many watches now use cases that are 40mm+, in fact most are 44mm or larger some as big as 55mm!!! So if. you are used to big flashy watches this is not going to be the watch for you. It is a 34mm case which is rather small by modern standards.Okay you are still with me, then lets get to what this watch is. It is one badass functional timepiece. It has a wrist presence of a watch at least 40mm or in my opinion despite its small size it wears very big and I really like the case. I have had some poly carbon fiber cases which I really did not like and one forged carbon cased watch which I did like but is much more expensive. I find the fibershell material that Marathon uses to be a perfect choice for this type of watch. I am not a fan of army green and I originally wanted the black model but this one was so heavily discounted I went with it and I am glad I did. The case because of the rugged shape and box like lines really make the watch look tough. The color is such a matt dark green I do not mind it at all.This watch has the venerable Seiko NH35 movement that hack's and hand winds. It is a great cheap and reliable movement. Very accurate for the cost. Marathon does not rip you off like almost every other watch company and charges the same price whether you choose quartz or mechanical. There are a lot of other companies that will charge close to $100-$300 or more for a watch with a NH35 movement over a quartz when there is actually very little difference in cost. I am very happy to have the Seiko at this price in a GTLS display watch!Lets get to the case and other features. The Crown, case back, and bezel are all stainless steel. The crown and bezel are blasted steel and the case back is brushed and polished. The crystal is a 3mm thick anti-reflective sapphire crystal which of course is awesome at any price!The build quality of this watch is excellent. Marathon is not in the business of making luxury watches so don't expect that but if you want quality and a lot of features you won't find in other watches at this price. I highly recommend this watch!!Now we will get to what really sets this mechanical field watch apart from the rest which is the Marathon GTLS illumination system which uses borosilicate glass tubes filled with tritium for a constant glow for up to 25 years. There really is nothing like gtls at night. The tubes Marathon uses are better than average but not T100. The dial is a dark flat black with very crisp and legible printing for all the numerals. The dial and hands are ultra legible in all conditions.The band is a standard nylon strap similar to a nato but shorter and more comfortable.So if you want a true "tough" watch with a true military heritage and specs look no further. Don't worry about the size as it looks surprisingly big for it's small size which makes it ultra functional during any activity. Any athlete's looking for a reliable watch should consider this Marathon!

Love this watch. Elegant but rugged, simple, tactical look for a Swiss field watch made for various militaries around the world. When the limited edition of this model with the Benrus/ETA movement became scarce (they only made 600) I was thrilled to see that they continue making these. The only difference I see is that the ETA 2801 mechanical movement is not stamped by Benrus. Other than that they appear to be identical.Update: Had it a couple of weeks now and could not be happier. It gains about 2 second a week which is phenominal accuracy for a mechanical watch. I dont think it is too small as some have complained but I never liked the trend towards massive watches. Also, Marathon's website incorrectly states that the mil-spec classification is type 1 class 1. It should state type 2 class 4 (which is in fact on the packaging you receive). Type 2 means higher tolerances for anti-magnetism, high altitude, salt resistance and mechanical (no battery). If you want a tough genuine military watch, this is a great choice.

Definitely not the military-spec toughness I expected. I wore this watch on and off for six months without drops or other damage. Just around the house, no extreme conditions or water exposure. One day it stopped ticking. Winding or residual motion didn't help. I sent it off for warranty repair. Took more than a month for them to acknowledge receiving it (mailing only took two days, I tracked it) and put it into queue to look over. I was told there was a 6-8 week wait for it to be seen, so I'm guessing it will be close to or more than 3 months before I get it back. To me, long queues suggest widespread quality control issues at Marathon. I'll update the review when I hear more about whether the warranty will be honored, etc.

5 stars only for the most excellent customer service of AMAZON. Loved the look of the watch, but arrived broken and with their "security tape" cellophane tapped. One tritium tube was completely dark and upon examination, watch seems to have been dropped at some point. I asked Amazon for a refund, sent the watch back, and it was a VERY rapid response on their part in applying the refund. They truly did the right thing and therefore earned my business henceforth. Customer satisfaction is the way to sell people and utilizing real human customer service representatives with real person to person interaction, not Artificial Intelligence, where you are simply talking to a robot who displaced a human who needed a job. Do this often enough, and no one will have the money to buy things from places like Amazon. The Chinese know this well. Just think if all the hand laboring farmers of China found themselves out of work. That is why the Chinese do not buy a lot of Combines. Smart. AS will never last; it cannot.

This is definitely a smaller watch but it does its job with efficiency and precision and gets out of the way. Lug to lug it comes out around 41mm and it has a diameter of about 35mm, may seem small by to days standards but it really is and ideal size when your using it in an active capacity. It has a simple high contrast dial and a very smooth and accurate movement, I mean dead on, its very light on the wrist and unobtrusive thanks to its smaller size and that fibershell case which is also great for some hard use. The tritium is very bright, works as it should and having the 12 o'clock position illuminated in orange is not just cool but great for orientation in the dark. Between that and it having dual winding (kinetic motion and hand winding) and a hacking feature as well this is a very fairly priced and worth while purchase, if you need a handsome hard use watch you got it here.