You don't always get what you pay for

When people overpay for something, they tend to rationalise their purchase. They say something along the lines of "you get what you pay for." I hate it when people say this. More often than not, you don't get what you pay for. Today my girlfriend gave me that line, saying things like how expensive clothes last longer because the fabric was better. I asked her what fabric was in the shirt and she didn't know. She mysteriously knew it was better fabric and that it would last longer.

To hit home the idea that you don't always get what you pay for, I used wristwatches as an example. There is no product category with as much vulgar brand snobbery as horology. You can buy an electronic Casio watch for $200 or you can buy a Patek Phillipe for $200,000, and the Casio is better built, more accurate, has a stopwatch, an alarm, and is waterproof and shockproof whereas the Patek Phillipe is none of these things. The reason why the Patek Phillipe is expensive is because of the brand and the history and the fact that it is handmade. If you really believe you get what you pay for, you would purchase a $200,000 watch rather than a $200 watch or just look at your phone for the time.

My main point is that spending more money for something doesn't mean that it's better for you to buy it because a product may be priced high not for features that you care about but to cater to snobs.

Casio W-800H-1AVDF

I like to think of myself as a thrifty person, but I have just received from a delivery man a wristwatch that I ordered from Ebay. It is the Casio W-800H-1AVDF. All up I paid A$33 for the watch. This price includes postage and handling.

My old watch was running out of batteries. The watch still worked, but the numbers were very dim, which meant I couldn't read it well.



One question I asked myself is whether I needed a watch. Many people say that because we have mobile phones now that display the time there is no need for wristwatches. This is a fair argument. The problem for me is that I don't have my mobile phone with me everywhere I go. For example, at work my mobile phone is banned, so I have to keep it in my bad in my locker. Nevertheless, many of my co-workers flout the rules and bring their mobile phones in. This is a moot point because at work I can easily get the time from the computer as well as several wall clocks.

One place where I need a watch is when I'm in the shower. My mobile phone is not water resistant. It might be able to tolerate a few splashes, but I am sure that it will die if I put it into a stream of shower water. Why do I need to tell the time in the shower? I floss in the shower and I time how long I floss with my stopwatch. I also have another stopwatch running to time how long I take in the shower. This prevents me from using up too much water.



Another time when I need a wristwatch is when I'm exercising on my elliptical trainer. Using a stopwatch, I time how much cardiovascular exercise I do and aim to achieve 210 minutes per week on average. My elliptical trainer faces no wall clocks. While I am on the elliptical trainer I usually leave my mobile phone lying on a table nearby. When I am exercising on the elliptical trainer I cannot see the display on this mobile. I don't like to put the mobile phone in my pockets because that will ruin weight distribution and affect my running.

One problem with relying on time displays from wall clocks is that they could be wrong. In fact, they often are. People care about their own time-keeping devices but don't care about public time-keeping devices. I often see wall clocks at work and then say to a co-workers, "That time is wrong." The co-worker usually just nods and walks away. Usually wall clocks are wrong because they drift away from the proper time and become either slow or fast. Often after daylight savings people don't bother to change them. If you have your own wristwatch you can regularly synchronize it to the time on an atomic clock (via the Internet) and you can walk around certain that you have the right time. However, if you rely on the time-keeping devices of others, you will get contradictory numbers, which adds to uncertainty.



Another use of this watch is when I am in bed and I need to look at the time. The mobile phone is away from my body so when I wake up in the middle of the night I have no idea where it is. However, this watch has an illuminator function that allows the watch to light up with the press of a button. I can check the time even when it is dark.

Another reason why a watch is good is because when you are having coffee, lunch, dinner, or a meeting with others, it is rude to look at the time beuase it signals to them that you want to leave. If you take your mobile phone out of your pocket to look at the time, that is very obvious. However, however a quick glance at your watch can be done with subtlety. You can put your arms on your legs and then look down as if you are tired.

I needed to look at a cheap watch that had all the features I needed, that is, accurate time, stopwatch, water resistant to 50 meters or more, and date display. It is incredible how many expensive watches don't even have these basic features.

Do Young People Need Watches?

My brother told me that watches are not needed nowadays, especially by young people, because you can easily tell the time on your mobile phone. Why then do I wear a wristwatch? It could be because of habit. I am used to glancing at my wrists to tell the time and getting used to looking at my mobile might take a while.

Another reason is because I don't carry my phone around with me everywhere. In fact, I don't think many people do. When I'm walking outside I have my phone in my pocket all the time. But when I arrive to work I take the mobile phone out and put it on the desk. Many of my co-workers seem to do the same. When I come home I take the phone out from my pocket and leave it on my desk. I don't carry it around everywhere I go. When the phone goes off I can hear it from the other side of the house and run. I don't take the mobile phone into the shower with me otherwise I'd ruin it. When I sleep I don't sleep with my mobile phone on me. I leave it on the floor of my bed. I mainly keep the phone away from me during these times for comfort (having a phone in your pocket all the time really is uncomfortable) and because of fear of cancer (the evidence is inconclusive, but I still worry). During all these times when my phone is away from my body I may need to know the time and because the mobile phone isn't always on me this can be a problem. My watch, however, is always on me. I wear it everywhere all the time. Unlike the phone it is not bulky or uncomfortable. It is lightweight, it doesn't need recharging all the time, and it's comfortable. I often forget it's even on me. When I'm in the shower I can check the time out (it is water resistant). When I'm in bed in the dark I can easily check the time by illuminating the dial. Not all watches have this illumination function but mine does. You can get one for pretty cheap.

Another reason why I have a watch is not really because I need the time but because I need a stopwatch. When I am on the treadmill doing exercise I time myself to make sure I do enough. On an average day I do about 30 minutes of exercise on the treadmill. There is a stopwatch on my phone, but I remember one time when my watch was dead and I had to use the phone's stopwatch. It wasn't good. What I did was I started the stopwatch and then put the phone in my pocket and proceeded to run. As I ran faster and faster, my legs moved more and more vigorously, and this caused the mobile phone in my pocket to bounce up and down all over the place. Not good. The watch, however, is different. It doesn't interfere with my running. It is easy to quickly glance at the watch while running.

Ultimately the problem with the phone as a timekeeper is that the phone, while being a timekeeper, is trying to do many other things as well. It is a phone, obviously. But some phones are also cameras. Just because you can put a camera in a phone it doesn't mean cameras will become extinct. This is because the phone's main purpose is to be a phone, for you to talk to others. Once you start pumping other features into it then one gets in the way of the other. A watch is good as a timepiece because it does precisely that and it does it well. But a mobile phone isn't as good because it is a phone. Because it is a phone it requires constant recharging, it is bulkier, there are radiation fears, and so on. The same goes with the camera. The camera phone does not offer the same level of power as the stand-alone camera. There is usually a tradeoff in image resolution.