Call me a sucker for a Pathfinder, Casio’s monstrous sports watches designed for hiking, camping, and cage fighting. The PAW5000 uses the same quad-sensor movement as the other Pathfinder models including a digital compass, altimeter, barometer, and thermometer.

Instead of an LCD display, however, the central seconds hand acts as the main indicator, offering a physical view of the various read-outs and cleaning up the face considerably.

The watch will be available in May for $450.

Equipped with Casio’s traditional Pathfinder triple sensor technology, the PAW5000-1 includes a digital compass, altimeter, barometer and thermometer, making this the all-in-one tool necessary for high energy, rugged, outdoor adventures. The PAW5000-1 has a unique second hand that acts as a compass needle while the hour and the minute hands are specially designed with cut-outs for greater visibility of the dial underneath which assists with reading the digital display and dial indexes. With a resin band, the watch provides a lightweight feel offering durability and comfort on every trip.

The newest Pathfinder features Casio’s innovative self-charging, self-adjusting technology, tough solar power and Waveceptor Multi-Band 6 Atomic Timekeeping Technology, alleviating concerns about changing the time for daylight saving time or leap years. This timepiece automatically synchronizes with Coordinated Universal Time broadcast continuously by stations linked to atomic clocks within the US, Germany, the UK, China and two in Japan based on the user’s home city setting. Tough solar power adds to the Pathfinder’s efficiency while the unique power saving function allows the watch to power down when not exposed to light for a certain period of time, thus conserving power.

Casio announced their new Pathfinder yesterday, the PAG40-7V. This newest addition has a thermometer, digital compass, altimeter, barometer, and is water resistant to 100 meters. Of course, the only place you’ll be able to get it is online.

What’s making this Casio different is it’s being marketed exclusively through Amazon.com, for the quite reasonable price of $200. This isn’t the first time Casio has marketed a watch this way, and it’s certainly not the first Pathfinder, but we are starting to see a trend among a certain market of exclusive online marketing. It’ll be interesting to see if this works out in the long run, I know I generally prefer to hold a watch in my hand before buying it, but the Pathfinder line hasn’t changed much over the years. I do have to admit this new model looks quite a bit different from my old ATC-1200 though.

The new Pathfinder will be available sometime this holiday season on Amazon.com, with an MSRP of $200.

I’m a mechanical man, but sometimes you need a sports watch to withstand the hard knocks associated with heavy activity like “drinking at a bar” and “sitting on the back porch with a beer.”

I’ve worn Pathfinders for years now – my first one was a large titanium model with that is basically a cousin to this one. Pathfinders are part of Casio’s outdoor line, designed for hiking and skiing. This model has a compass, barometer, thermometer, altimeter, and stopwatch built in along with a tide graph. It is water resistant to 200 meters.

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