Pugwash

This is the sort of question you should be posing to your dealer.

That is, in fact, the point. One day, my reviews may be as good as By-Tor's, and until then, I'll try to make them at least a little entertaining.

*THUNK* You know what that noise was? It was you missing the point by a country mile.

Where I come from, it's Rosy Palm and her five daughters.

I think Omegas look better on leather. My Moonwatch has a black leather strap and it makes it look significantly better. Edit: The speedmasters look better, that is.

Me? Off to the pub tonight, so I picked something subtle yet classy that tells good time, has a day/date (I tend to forget stuff like that) and that looks good. I dread to think how small this will feel once my 45mm PO arrives ...

This review is of the IWC Flieger Chronograph replica currently available. The Flieger line are pilot's watches (Fliegen is German for "To fly", so Fliegerchrono means "Chrono that flies") that IWC has had as part of its history since 1936. This particular model, the 3706, is a 39mm watch that was replaced a few years ago by the 42mm 3717 that's designed to cash in on the popular looks of the Big Pilot, IWC's flagship watch. This simpler design is cleaner than its replacement and appears to have directly inspired several subsequent designs, like Fortis's Flieger design. The replica has got an Asian 28k 7750 movement without any dial-moving mods, so it should be a sight more reliable than those with moved dials. As long as you follow the usual procedures for using a 7750, you should be fine. All the features of the original are present on the replica: it is functionally identical. I got this one off Sash, so I was comfortable in knowing that if it had died in its first week or so (the telling period for Asian 7750s) then it would be dealt with. Check with your dealer on their policy if this worries you. The case is brushed steel and fits in with the grey and black feel of this watch. It's classy in its subdued monochrome look. The case is a different depth to the original, but not enough for it to give it away. Also, the replica is missing the deep AR coating on the gen, but it's not milky on a side view so I suspect it's lightly treated, like most replicas. The crown is a screw-in crown with the familiar IWC fish motif. Both the crown and the pushers are apparently slightly wrong sized, but I think you'd need a gen and a rep side by side to see it. The strap supplied is exactly the same MooCroc as the one supplied with the IWC Portuguese Chrono. It's a 20mm strap with a brushed clasp. It does the job and I don't plan on replacing it just yet. The faults and flaws on this watch are pretty much all on the dial. The numbers on the 12 and 9 subdials should all be horizontal, there are three dots missing in the 12 subdial and the 12 and 6 dials should be ringed in white. Apart from that pile of errors, it's damned close. I think a genuine dial would finish it off to a T. Now, I'm going to do something I don't normally do and that's use someone else's photo without permission. I cropped this photo of the genuine article from one of the magnificent photos from the Joyful Collection website. Click on the photo to see their IWCs in their natural habitat, but be warned it's all in Japanese. You can see the subdials very clearly on that photo and see where they differ from the replica. While there are faults, as with other replicas, I don't think they're enough to turn me off this watch. I would check, though, before you buy one that it has the correct white hands on the subdials as this is apparently a recent fix. Older models have silver hands that are incorrect. Conclusion: Good replica (not perfect, but good enough) of a timeless classic. In closing, I'd like to thank Sashwatch, the supplier of this magnificent timepiece, By-Tor, for not complaining when I ripped off his opening picture style and Ryaku, for pointing out the dial and case differences. Without them, this review would be a lot less interesting. Edit: My German has been corrected by Seadweller 4000. Another one to add to the thanks. His correction is as follows: In german "Flieger" means pilot, while "fliegen" is translated as flying. So a Fliegeruhr does not mean a watch that flies, but a pilot's watch. Yes, it's a repost, but I thought I needed at least one review in the IWC section ...

Very true. Nice to see you're paying attention.

between 450MB and 1GB+, with the majority being closer to a gigabyte. I use MP4/AVC (h.264, 1200kbps, 624x352 with 128kbps AAC audio) and as far as I remember, h.264 uses more power.

Not quite. There are a few location-dependent links, but most of them are uniform.

Ah, the reply I was waiting for. Good to have you back, Neil.

Damn, I get well over 3 hours of video on my 80GB.

18 months development time (Apple took 3 years) and 6 months FCC validation? Apple have two years before they have to worry about competition copying them.

Nice try.

The quote was 1% of the market, which works out at 9.nn million per year, meaning they'd need to sell under 5 million by the end of 2007. If you want to extrapolate the 10 million, it would have to be by July 2008.

You're wrong. I was merely hoping to trip you up on your incorrect '10 million in 2007' statement.

Do you fancy making a wager?

I use my RAZR for music on planes. It's what airplane mode is for. ps. I think you'll be surprised with battery life.

This is because of the FCC filing. They wanted to announce the phone properly instead of having it basically released by the FCC's public documents system. In six months, when the FCC approval is done, the phone will be released. I believe Steve Jobs wanted to be the one to announce this, instead of having the FCC do it for him.

[censored]. I wore my IWC GST into an AD before I fitted the genuine dial and the guy showed me that the 7750 datewheel used on the Hamiltons was the same as IWC used. Then he said, while holding the Hamilton and the IWC rep both in his hands, that obviously the IWC was better made, of course. To assume that all ADs are staffed by horologeeks is a gross over-estimation of the skills required to sell a fancy blingwatch.

And somehow being simplified is a bad thing? Also, I'm a UNIX sysadmin. I do stuff with computers that would make your ears bleed, yet when I go home, I use a Mac. Why? Because it's simple to use and doesn't get in between me and what I want to do, and if I need to get rough with it, I just fire up Terminal and get on with some hard-core UNIX command-line stuff. You must be the first person I've ever heard calling UNIX too simplified.

I've met two of our dealers and they didn't seem to be millionaires to me. I think your maths are sideways.

No it isn't.

There you go, folks! This is great news. Neil, good luck and I now know where to point people that are after them.

In all seriousness, I wouldn't want to offend any other dealers, so if a proper legit dealer, like when TTK was selling them, were to lose business or in any way be undermined, I'd be doing the community a disservice by unleashing the info. If it all turns out to be merely a wild goose chase, then I don't mind being the only victim.