The Tissot T-Touch is Tissot’s flagship sports watch. While other models have come and gone, the venerated T-Touch with its touch-sensitive crystal and bold styling has remained constant. A few models appeared to replace the original, notably the T-Touch Expert, but nothing could quite unseat it. The Tissot T-Touch is a well known and respected line of tech watches from one of Switzerland's best known watch manufacturers. Tissot has built its name on crafting well built and affordable time pieces — something of a rarity from everyone's favorite neutral federal republic. The T-Touch Expert is the most feature packed model in the brands history and it offers a comprehensive mix of sport styling and easy to use tech.
Now, however, Tissot is essentially mothballing the old model and is focusing on the bold T-Touch II. This new model has a larger LCD screen, better water resistance, and more style options. But it’s still the T-Touch you know and love. But, and this is important, it has a backlight!
The T-Touch was one of the first wrist computers and it was unusually mostly because it came out of a Swiss house. To activate the functions you held down the button at 3 o’clock and then tapped the crystal at one of the points on the face. The functions included an altimeter, barometer, thermometer, and even a very unique compass that caused the hands to rotate, well, like a compass. It was the ultimate in cool to be able to activate the watch and have the hands spin around of their own accord. It was, for a time, fairly magical.
Now the T-Touch isn’t quite as magical but it’s still a cool piece of kit. The watch is quite thick and is about 47mm wide. The rubber strap is, in short, one of my favorite straps ever and the traditional orange goes well with almost nothing, which is why it’s so great. The orange strap, in short is a big thumb in the nose of fashion.
The T-Touch line is famous for its "touch" ability that turns the regular-old sapphire crystal into a touch sensitive interface for selecting one of the many, many functions. Lets take a look under the hood:
- 43.6mm titanium case.
- Matching titanium bracelet.
- Sapphire crystal.
- Dual time zones.
- Dual Alarms*.
- Barometer (absolute and relative)*.
- Chronograph/Countdown timer*.
- Thermometer*.
- Altimeter (can record difference)*.
- Compass (with Azimuth ability)*.
- Perpetual Counter.
- 100m Water Resistance.
- Integrated LCD with red backlight.
- Touch enabled crystal.
- * Touch-activated features.
The above list, while somewhat overwhelming, shows what can be done with modern technology. The kind of tools that would have filled Batman's utility belt can now be packed into a relatively small 43mm case. I remember seeing the spec sheet and being surprised by both the laundry list of features and the fact that almost every one of the features can be activated on the touch crystal, which has seven touch points. Some of the touch points even have two feature levels (ie. Chronograph/countdown timer) activated by tapping the allocated area twice.
VERDICT
THE CASING
The case on the Tissot T-Touch Expert is the kind of case (and bracelet) that makes your brain skip a beat with you pick it up. It looks heavy and solid but the titanium is light and relatively hollow feeling. It doesn't feel cheap at all — it feels strong and confident while being worn, and is yet another watch that proves titanium is a great case and bracelet material. I am admittedly not the biggest fan of the styling on most Tissot watches, but I consider this to be a very handsome watch that is both cool and sporty without being too nerdy. The T-Touch Expert incorporates a large LCD screen that takes up most of the lower third of the dial and relates data in tandem with the hands based upon which feature you've selected. The chronograph-style side buttons are used to manipulate certain functions while the middle button is pressed to activate the touch mode or held down for two seconds to activate the backlight.
When a feature is activated the screen shows fine point data (heading, barometric pressure, lapsed time) while the hands take on a contextual meaning. For example, when the watch is in "meteo" mode the hands group together and depending on their position to the right or left of 12 o'clock, they indicate whether the pressure is rising or dropping. Depending on the amount of change in the hands position, you can predict bad weather. The best feature, as far as I'm concerned, is the ability to blend the features with Standard time keeping mode so you can monitor a feature on-screen and still have the time reading on the hands. This is a great feature and really shows that Tissot knows what they are doing and what is needed in tech a watch. I can activate touch mode, choose the countdown timer by touching "chrono" twice, begin a countdown, and the watch returns to time keeping mode but leaves the countdown information on screen. Great for cooking, driving long distance, etc. Its just an obvious feature for a watch with a screen and I really appreciate it on the T-Touch Expert.
The backlight first appeared on the T-Touch Expert and adds quite a bit of value to this watch. The backlight has always been the biggest problem with the original model and this new light is a marked improvement.
The functions, barring a few additions, are the same in the T-Touch II as in the first model. You have extra time zones in this new model and you have some unique settings that allow you to set “climate zone” and hemisphere for more accurate altimeter readings. It is also a bit more water resistant with up to 100M resistance. It is obviously not a diving watch, however, simply because the sensors require access to the outside air to work.
THE BRACELET
As previously noted, the bracelet is made of titanium so it is light and strong and I did not find the review model to be especially scratch prone (titanium's Achilles heel). The bracelet is noise free with a firm push button divers-fold release and a nice folding divers extension inside the clasp. The extension is likely not designed for diving, per say, because the watch is only rated to 100m and the functions cannot be used while submerged. I like to think of it at a jacket extension to get the watch on top of lighter weather protective clothing like jackets and sweaters. I usually have a complaint about the bracelet on almost every watch, but this is a rare exception. It's light, precise, has a good clasp, and there's no noise. If you get this watch, get it on the bracelet.
The model I tested with rubber strap costs S$825 at the official Tissot shop. This is the perfect geek’s watch and except for a few Casios I’ve grown to know and love it’s probably one of the best wrist computers I’ve worn. It’s fun, useful, and quite handsome and only a hopeless snob wouldn’t love the orange strap. It makes for a great Swiss quartz timepiece for almost anyone and, is great for men and women.
DISCLAIMER
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