Freestyle Nomad Altimeter Watch - Quick Review

In for review is the all-new Nomad altimeter watch from Freestyle. With all the features you'd come to expect for a mountain-friendly watch, plus Freestyle's lifetime warranty, the watch has a lot of promise, but we'll see how it fares in the lab. My first thoughts on the Nomad are mixed actually. The function of the watch is superb and for the most part, all settings and configuration have been easy to manipulate sans instructions. I've used enough of these types of watches that I can typically get them up and running without looking at the fineprint. The only one I've yet to figure out is the logbook, but I'll dig into the instructions to get that rolling. After wearing it for a few days and taking it on a backcountry ski tour, all functions appear to work well and there are a variety of display options within each mode (nice feature). I like being able to easily scroll back through the graphical altitude display. On Saturday, this looked like a pretty steep mountain right in the middle of the graph--cool. The downsides thus far stem from the size of this watch. This watch is likely the largest face of any altimeter watch I've worn (altimeter watches are notoriously large). Even the behemoth Suunto Vector seems smaller. You do get plenty of screen size and nice, large buttons that work well with gloves on, but it is a large watch--no question about that. I'll post my thoughts after a more thorough long-term flogging. The Good Intuitive function Design is glove-friendly Large screen shows tons of data, but can get confusing in some modes Scrollable altitude display Extra watch band hook loop actually keeps things in place Lifetime warranty Price is good at $160 msrp The Bad Likely the largest face of any altimeter watch on the market Rubber strap feels too stiff and hard No subdued color choices (all or mostly black) Buy Now: Search for Freestyle Nomad Watch