I've had a Suunto Vector for over a decade. Been with me on lots of trips. Still functions well. The weak alarm is my only real complaint. It's not loud enough to wake me up when I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag.

Suunto Core is so bad, I prefer Altimax but I'd choose one of those: Casio Pro Trek PRG 120 or PRG 100

Sometimes I am too high or too low to know what time it is,

it's always high times though

I use a Casio Protrek 2500-1. Basically has all the features of the Suunto Core, with solar charging. I've never had any problems with mine. I'm very happy with it.

I see this thread is a thousand years old, but I'll post anyway... Suunto watches are awesome, but the Core seems to have some drawbacks for how much more expensive it is. My first Suunto was an X6, and it was RAD. Did everything I wanted, easily. When it finally started pooping out, I bought a Vector.. and after about a solid year of using it for alpine climbing, I'm only just now barely starting to figure out how to use it. Not nearly as intuitive as the X6 was, and I really don't think it does anything the X6 didn't do.

Plus, as mentioned, the X6 is a more attractive watch.. doesn't take up a coffee-cups worth of space on your wrist either. I think it's probably the perfect everything-watch.

And now that I posted, it doesn't seem to be available anymore. Ne'ermind.

I like my Suunto Core

Casio Pathfinder: solar powered; no need for batteries. Very consistently accurate altimeter; alarm in new models is nice and loud! still bulky, but that rarely matters

http://www.protrek.casio.com/watches/

I had. Casio Pathfinder of '98 vintage that went fine for 12 years, when my eye sight went bad and could no longer see the small display.

Then, I bought a Suunto Vector in Feb 2010 and out of the box, the accuracy was not worth beans. For example, it was consistently off by 500-600 ft on the climb up to Camp Muir.

That was went bad this year on a climb, so instead of sending it back in for repair that would cost at least $45, I bought a new Casio pathfinder. I will test it out next month.

In the past I've used a Casio PRG-40 Pathfinder which has been bullet proof for about the last 8 or 9 years. It still works great, though it is starting to look a little hammered having used it both day to day and out in the wild. Over the past year I've been using a Suunto Ambit HR, and upgraded to the Suunto Ambit2 HR in June. The Ambit2 is not a cheap watch by any means, about $650.00, but having all the GPS/Route/Body metrics stored in it then uploading the data to the server has been worth it. It has a feature called Fuzedalti, which meshes GPS and Barometric elevation together for altitude. Multiple activity modes in the watch, and a ton of other features. Sapphire crystal lens, stainless steel bezel, resin body... it is built fairly well.



A good in-depth review for it is here: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/04/suunto-ambit2-review.html

I have a Suunto core, the aluminum version. Only complaint is the quiet alarm, but I have yet to own a watch with a loud enough alarm. generally put it inside my sleeping bag, by my head, does the trick! The altimeter seems very accurate to a fine measure, relative to whatever the air pressure sets the elevation to. For example, it measures gain/loss very well, regardless of weather. Weather definitely skews the accuracy as an objective measurement. The interface is simple enough, but has a good feature set. It is pretty sturdy, and feels well constructed. Haven't scratched the glass yet, and the body only has a few small nicks after a decent amount of use. I'd recommend it.