CashForSmartPhones.com Review

I recently admitted that I am now Apple's Bitch.  There's no denying it.  I have decided to simply buy every new phone Apple make after my horrible AT&T / Android experience.  But this leads to a problem, because of the business model of cell phones these days, specifically smart phones, early upgrades tend to cost a lot more money than the price they advertise on TV.  And we all know why, and it's no big deal.  So what to do with the old phone?

I found a web site called CashForSmartPhones.com (part of the Cash4Laptops.com company) and they seemed to have a very reasonable sales pitch, credible reviews, and decent ratings.  You type in the smart phone you have and they give you a quote for what they are willing to buy it for.

So I entered the Samsung Infuse 4G, and my old Apple iPhone 3GS.  They quoted me $240 for the Samsung and $80 for the iPhone.  Not bad.  So I decided to take them up on the offer and filled out my information.  Within a few days a box and shipping label arrived at my home.  All I had to do is reset my phones back to their factory settings (although this company claim to erase the data themselves upon receipt), and send them in, shipped free via UPS.

A few days later I got an email saying the devices had been inspected, I called and they offered me $220 for both units.  I accepted, they PayPal'd the money right away.  Easy money.

Now you may notice that the price they offered was lower than what they paid, and I'm fine with that.  The iPhone was old and crap, that's why I replaced it.  The case was cracked at the back, the battery was in poor shape, and I had neglected to supply the charger or cord with it.  And despite the newness of the Infuse, the case was already getting worn thanks to the cheap ass crappy materials Samsung used in the construction.

I probably could have pushed for a bit more money, or tried to sell them on eBay, but then you have to deal with random buyers, the usual eBay bullshit, fees, etc.  This was straight up an easy transaction by a company that did what they promised and gave me money for something that frankly would have been left sitting in a drawer if I hadn't found this web site.

It's always exciting to see a company doing business the right way, and really I had no complaints about this whole transaction.  The $220 they paid me easily offset the penalty for early upgrade, and when the iPhone 5 comes out, I suspect I'll be doing the same again.

Slutty Cheerleaders

A cheerleader is as American as apple pie, and for that reason few Americans seem to consider that the sport is little more than the wholesale exploitation of women and girls.

The story begins in school, when the girls are groomed for exploitation and fitted with special custom designed and fitted slut outfits.  In the past schools were okay with their girls dressing slutty because hey, it's school pride right?

But what's interesting is that some schools are now beginning to wise up to the problem, for all the wrong reasons.  Instead of noting that competitive cheer-leading is dangerous and results in some 30,000 teen injuries per year, or that the whole concept of flipping around in slutty costumes while the men play a real sport is inherently sexist, what's happening in some schools is that the uniforms are deemed so slutty that they violate the dress code.

That's what recently happened in a school in California.  The same $300 slut costumes that were mandated by the school, were deemed so utterly inappropriate that girls could face suspension for wearing them in school.

Let me break that down for you.  The school designed their slutty cheerleader costumes to be worn by teenage girls.  These costumes cost $300, and were so completely inappropriate that the girls were only allowed to wear them when cheer-leading.  If they wore them inside the school they had to cover up with sweat pants.  And if they were caught just wearing the uniform, chosen by the school, they would be disciplined.

While I hate to rail against such a deep rooted American tradition, I think it's time America took a long hard look at the slutty teen cheerleaders and ask ourselves is this is really fair and reasonable to our youth.  What kind of message do we give to young girls when we create the desire in them to cavort semi naked in slut costumes in front of hundreds or thousands of people.  But then we tell them that dressing like that during any other time of the day is slutty and will result in their punishment?

The whole concept and execution is pretty disgusting.  It's sexist exploitation of teen girls on every level and it helps breed superficial behavior and sexist gender roles.  On top of all that tens of thousands of young women are being inured; some permanently.  And for what?  Some pointless men worshiping gymnastics in a slutty costume?  Where is the educational value in that?  Why is it necessary?  Are American sports so boring that the only way to keep an audience is to have semi naked girls jiggling around?

Just seems like bullshit to me.

Love, Actually

I noticed that New Year's Eve flopped at the box office this weekend, standing as I write this on a 4.9 rating out of 10 on IMDB.

Last year's rom-com flop was (among others) Valentines Day.

The common denominator is that they are all trying to be Love Actually, albeit set at a different time of the year and with more Americans in it.

But Love Actually was an excellent movie, written by a genius comedy writer and a great cast.  It managed to tell multiple stories with a common thread in a funny and clever way that made it an instant classic.

I'm not saying that one day this movie will not be surpassed, but it takes more than putting some famous pretty people together in a room.  This type of multi story line movie requires an enormous skill to put together, compelling characters, and a good set of stories that add up to the big picture.

If you want to see a nice romantic comedy that kicks the shit out of Valentines Day and New Year's Eve this Christmas, take a look at Love Actually.

Adam Carolla Rich Rant

Recently I was unfortunately subjected to a stream of douchebaggery from Adam Carolla, mouthpiece of the jocktards and thought I'd talk about the content of his rant.

In the nine minute rant Carolla begins by reminding us that 1% of Americans pay 50% of the taxes.  He then talks about the politics of envy, entitled millennials, and then defends the status quo and uses the whole rant to pat himself on the back for working hard, getting rich, and being better than 50% of Americans who are lazy assholes.  Nice.

The obvious counter to the first 'argument' is that while it may be true that the top 1% pay a lot of tax, the deck has been so stacked in this country these days that the bottom 50% of Americans control about 2% of the wealth.  So even if we took everything they had in the world, it would still be less than a 4% tax increase on the wealthy.

He moves on to talk about envy.  He uses the example of the 'good old days' when a man would be walking down the street with his son, and they would admire the Rolls Royce driving by owned by a CEO.  Claiming that now people are taught to hate and envy the Rolls Royce driver, not admire what they have achieved.

But there is glaring difference between the mythical good old days and today.  Back then, the man walking down the street with his son, could put in an honest days work at the car factory and come home and feed his wife and family.  (We'll ignore the issue of the woman being forced into domestic servitude owing to their gender, as that's a separate issue.)  They could probably live comfortably, and the CEO was probably earning just 10-30 times more money than the worker.

In this day and age, the CEO is making millions, probably 200-400 times what the worker is making.  Well I say worker, he has probably had his job outsourced to another country, but pretending he hasn't for a second, his income will almost certainly not be enough to live off requiring another family member to work, just to make a living wage.  Even if the CEO runs the company into the ground, has to take a government bail out with our tax dollars, he'll still make millions and when he retires he'll help himself to a golden handshake of millions more out of the worker's pension scheme.  Then the company will complain they can't afford to pay for worker's 'entitlements' and 'benefits' because some asshole executive just drained the fund designed to pay for all that stuff.

The CEO will have just enjoyed ten years of Bush tax cuts, helping to create an unprecedented gap between the rich and poor.  His team of lobbyists, lawyers and accountants will have ensured that the corporation will have paid nothing in taxes.  And when Obama talks about letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire, or suggest an extra tax on private jets, he'll scream about redistribution of wealth and class warfare.

About the only thing I can partially agree with Carolla on is the sadness of the millennials.  They have indeed been raised in the bizarre world where they have to be 'validated' all the time.  We worry about about their self esteem so much we have to constantly praise them for 'trying' even when their efforts suck.

For a time my wife did some contract work for a well known online university.  Often when she handed out a low grade, she'd get this indigent email from the student who would assure her that they had 'tried hard' and 'put a lot of effort' into their assignment.  The implication being that trying hard should be rewarded, even if the end result sucked.  A pretty stupid lesson that millennials have been taught from day one.

Finally Carolla tied his bullshit together by trying to make the right wing argument that anyone who works hard and tries hard can be successful, unless they suck in which case they should just shut up and accept being a loser.

But most of this crap stems from the ego of a celebrity who believes that the millions they have earned in the entertainment industry is because they are special.  Many really buy into this fallacy that they are just so talented that they deserve what the industry has given them.  This could not be further from the truth though.  For most celebrities, there has been one salient moment when they happened to meet a person with the power to change their lives.  They may have worked hard to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills, but it still came down to chance.

The person who made Carolla famous might have hated tall people, or people with curly hair, or sexist assholes, or he might have gone out drinking the night before and decided to stay home.

So just because you win the fame lottery, doesn't mean you are special, or magical, or better than the person who cleans your hotel room, or loads your bags on the plane.  It just means you got lucky.

If there is one thing that annoys me it is hearing some asshole like this ranting about why he shouldn't pay any more tax, and why the poor need to get some skin in the game.  Most of the poor are working their asses off holding down two, three or more jobs down just to exist.  Don't tell me they are not working hard.  Don't give me this shit about welfare queens.

We've tried the Republican model now for a decade.  That's how long the Bush tax cuts have been in place. And what do we have to show for trickle down economics?  Hmm.  The second biggest recession in US history?  The brink of collapse for what was the largest auto maker in the world?  The major banks and insurance companies of the US getting ready to file for bankruptcy?  9% unemployment?  A massive debt and deficit?  A stagnant housing market and falling housing prices.

If the Republican concept of low taxes on the 'job creators' worked so well, where is the evidence of this plan working?  And yet ask a Republican what the answer is, and they talk about keeping the tax cuts, adding new tax cuts for corporations who are (despite paying little to no tax) 'afraid' to hire more people because of our 'high' taxes in America?  Are you fucking shitting me?

I'm sorry Adam Carolla, but your rant about the rich was just a self serving pat on the back for your fame and fortune.  Occupy Wall Street have a very reasonable point which is that government policy has allowed a tiny handful of people to become filthy rich, not pay their fair share, and take billions in government contracts and handouts.  Meanwhile other nasty Republican policies have hurt and killed ordinary hard working Americans who never got that lucky break like you did.  But I guess it serves those 'losers' right eh?

Apple Own Me

Back in June I wrote about my break with Apple bondage.  After dealing with a bunch of bullshit with Apple and AT&T I decided to try the Android option and purchased a Samsung Infuse 4G which I have been using up until the beginning of December.

Unfortunately, this was a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence.  AT&T helped screw the phone with their shitty network, but even the crap network doesn't excuse the dropped calls, lack of reception in my study, and several minutes the phone could take to get a GPS lock on anything.  The phone would sometimes spontaneously get hot and turn itself off.  Really nice if you were expecting a call, only to find your phone had been off for a couple of hours.

AT&T have been promising to release the newer version of the OS for the phone for some time too.  But they never did.

And at the end of the day the big screen is pointless because if you have it on full brightness the phone is going to die long before you get a chance to watch that movie or do anything else useful with it.

So it was six months of disappointments and poor functionality. Finally I was sitting in a restaurant in Orlando Florida not 20 minutes from all the famous Disney / Universal / Harry Potter stuff and I could not get a signal (at least not one that worked) and I decided it was time to try something else.

When it came down to it, I don't want to lose my AT&T unlimited family plan.  It is pretty competitive price wise.  So faced with buying another phone on their network, there really was only one choice.  The iPhone feels more solid, better built, and looks cooler than anything out there.  And reviews told me that the 4S has the best camera of any iPhone yet.

So I broke down, got me an iCloud, paid the $200 penalty for an early upgrade, purchased the sucker warranty from Apple for $90.  And presto, I now own an iPhone, while Apple owns me.

I decided to wait a little while to review it because it's easy to have a honeymoon period with new electronic gadgetry and I didn't want to gush about something I was destined to hate.

The phone itself looks and feels much like the iPhone 4 of course, which is no bad thing.  And although I've been used to a 4.5 inch display for the past six months, the sharpness and clarity of the display made it an easy transition back to the smaller display, with the added benefit of a phone that is physically nicer and easier to handle.

Here's a summary of the iPhone 4S experience:

What I love

Okay, so Siri is fun.  There's something very science fiction about being able to say, "Siri, play me a U2 song."  The voice recognition still isn't Star Trek, but it's coming along.  This is just about the most impressive AI/Voice recognition that I've ever seen, and my hat is off to Apple for going down this road.

The camera delivers as promised, and in typical Apple fashion, it just works.  There is no F Stop, no ISO, no scene, no this, no that.  Point the camera and press the button.  The camera takes fabulous pictures, despite the lack of user configuration or control.  It beats my Samsung Infuse big time, especially in low light.

The new processor is faster and anything I try and do on the phone just zips along nicely.

GPS is super fast and the most accurate of any smart phone I've used.  FourSquare is nice and quick, which is great, because I don't want to spend two minutes checking into a location.

What I like

The battery life is pretty good.  On a full charge I can do everything I want to all day, and still have plenty left when I get home.  I mean battery life being good is a relative thing on a smart phone.  Clearly it's not going to last a week, and you are going to have to charge it every night.  But it's the best smart phone I've used.

Despite the substandard AT&T network there is some kind of dual antenna in this phone that makes it work better.  So I am getting stronger and more reliable signal with this phone than I did with the iPhone 3GS or my Samsung Infuse.

Minor Grumbles

Configuration was pretty easy.  Although the usual corporate pissing match made it harder than it should have been to port my music off my Amazon cloud, my ringtones off my old phone, and my contacts off my Google contacts database.  In fact when it came to contacts I eventually gave up and simply retyped them all into the iCloud.  Then I got a sync app to pull the pictures from Facebook.  Again, I believe that if corporations played better together, this process could have been a lot simpler.

Speaking of the iCloud, again I feel like Apple have tried to over simplify it and as a result lost some of what could have been useful functionality.

Facebook has much improved their standard app, but I've still found a few minor bugs that annoy me.

In an effort to over simplify the sync process, I somehow feel like they have made it more complicated in reality.  Because I have an iPad 2 for work, iTunes was trying to push apps from that onto my iPhone in a rather annoying way.  Fact is, many of my apps for the iPad are work related, and I don't necessarily want them on my iPhone.  Similarly, just because I put it on my iPhone doesn't mean I want it transferred to my iPad.  And if I download a 4Gb movie on my iPad, I certainly may not need it downloaded again onto my work laptop.

Overall

Until the competition radically improves their product, I've just decided to stay with Apple.  The 4S is an incredible phone, and so far it does all I want it to.  Sure, some things are very Apple and you just have to accept control in these areas.

I can't say I'd recommend AT&T, they do after all come in bottom every time Consumer Reports does a survey.  But I can't in all honesty tell that I'd be any happier with Verizon.  It would take me several months comparing them side by side to know that.  I travel a lot with my job, so it's not something I'd know right away.

In the end, if you can't beat them join them.  I tried to break away, reject the evil corporate BS of Apple, but I wasn't prepared to accept the price I had to pay in terms of lost features and functionality.

I found one of those websites where you can sell your old phone, and in theory sold the Samsung for more than I bought it for.  I'll wait until the money is in the bank before I let you know if that service worked right.

As for the iPhone 5.  Now that I am back drinking the Apple Kool-Aid, I'll probably just buy it when it comes out.  I mean sure, it will probably cost me the best part of $500, because I am not eligible for a cheap upgrade until 2013.  But so what.  I understand the business model, and I get that these modern smart phones are worth more than they sell them for with the contract.  Just don't expect me to camp out on the day of release.  Apple may own me, but I still have some dignity.

The 53%

When I wrote my last post about the 53% I ended up reading a number of posts that irritated me.  A bunch of Republican assholes writing their own summaries of how their hard work and determination saved them and why they are the 53%.  Of course we don't get to see the posts from those who worked hard and failed, or maybe they couldn't afford health care and died.

But anyway, here's my contribution.  My statement.  No I'm not going to write it on paper and photograph it, you can just read it here:

I didn't come from a rich family.

I can still remember walking to the laundrette (laundrymat) with my parents as a kid.  They lived within their means and didn't want to take out a loan for a washing machine.

My first school was in low income neighborhood, in the middle of welfare housing.  I walked two miles to and from school every day in the sun, rain and snow for six years.

My parents didn't own a car until I was eight, and the car they bought was worth less than $1,000.

My parents sacrificed a lot to scrape together the money for my secondary education at a cheap private school. 

I was later educated in a community college, but thanks to the political system in England, I didn't have to pay.  Just like I didn't have to pay for health care directly.

I took my first job at 13; a paper round which I did until I turned 16, and took a job working weekends at a Home Depot type of store.  I stayed there four years.

I purchased my first car with my life savings of $1,000 at the age of 19.  It was crap.  But got me to college and my first real job.

Thanks to saving and paying my bills, I was able to buy my first home at 23, with not a dime in assistance from the government, my friends or my family.  I did it with my own hard work and good credit.

I built a highly successful career in the health care industry, and have never borrowed money from friends or family.  

My wife and I have worked hard for everything we have, but we do not begrudge the government using our tax dollars to ensure that the poor get a fair chance at life.

We are liberals because we are smart enough to understand that just because two Mensa members from ordinary middle class families did okay, doesn't mean that everyone who works hard can achieve what we did.

I do not believe that every CEO, actor, rapper, reality show star, or sports person got where they got because of nothing but skill and hard work, the vast majority were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time when they hit their career lotteries.

It is a Repubican fallacy that the poor are stupid and/or lazy.  The poor are just like you or me, but they didn't catch the breaks we did.

They are not there to pour scorn on.  Rather than spending trillions on 'defense' and tax breaks for billionaires, I believe we should spend it on our own society.  Create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, and make America great for everyone, not just the 1%.

When we invest in America, and hold out a helping hand to those in need we are enriching the whole of society.


I am the 99%.  I work hard.  I have a job.

I am proud to be a liberal.

I am the 53%?

Oh America, will I ever understand you?

There is little doubt to those endowed with a brain and enough logic to reject Fox News that the gap between rich and poor in America is getting wider and wider, and has been for some time.  The first of the millionaire tax cuts introduced by George W. Bush turn a decade old this year, while further rich people tax gifts become eight years old this year.  As the results of Bush's horrific management of the economy continue to come home to roost Republicans keep pushing their brilliant plan of trickle down economics and any other drivel that slid out of the mouth of God's second son, Reagan.

While Republicans continue to disagree with everything Obama says (even if he is simply repeating Republican policies) they keep insisting that if we do anything at all to even hint that rich people should pay their fair share, the four horseman of the Apocalypse will show up.

So we are left with a Republican Congress deadlocking recovery plans, and insisting that the way to correct our economic woes in America is to make painful cuts to education, teachers, police, fire fighters, government workers, and programs designed to stop the poor in America living under bridges.

Then of course there is the whole Wall Street issue.  The CEOs stole money, gambled with it, collected fat bonus checks, and when it all went tits up they came to the tax payer with a begging bowl, claiming that government interference into the sacrosanct capitalist system was okay if the government was writing billion dollar checks of our money.

This is the background to some of the anger that has caused people to don V for Vendetta, Guy Fawkes masks and proclaim "We are the 99%."

And to many, this seems like a reasonable position.  The top 1% of Americans now control 26% of the wealth and this disparity continues to grow.  The same top 1% have seen their incomes rise by 275% in the past 30 years, outpacing the rest of us significantly.

But the right wing in this country have shown that if nothing else they are masters at getting stupid and ignorant people to vote against their own self interests so that they can continue to pursue the same policies that hurt poorer Americans significantly.  So they have unveiled their 'grass roots' campaign which is "We are the 53%."

They claim that 47% of Americans are now so poor, controlling as they do less than 2% of the wealth (versus 70% of the wealth controlled by the top 10%), they are not paying taxes.  And rather than question how we allowed so many tens of millions to become so poor and disenfranchised, they have repackaged the problem and sold it as the assertion that these people are FUCKING LAZY, and have no one to blame (yes you should be blamed for not being rich) but themselves.

They are poor because they won't get off their ass, get an education, land a nice job and join the ranks of the 53% who pay taxes (but don't climb too high because, you know, there's only so much room at the top).

And this fucked up thinking has finally led to people like our naive young woman pictured above.  Proud to be working three jobs and struggling to get an education, and ready to shit on the less fortunate who don't have the wherewithal or capability of entering a college honors program thanks to their shitty education and lack of resources.

The sad fact is when the 2012 election rolls around, these smug assholes who like to feel superior to the poor and are proud of their hard work will probably vote Republican because they just love the idea that when one day they get that high paying CEO job, there will be a party ready to see to it that there will be plenty of loopholes in the tax code for their expensive accountant to find, so they won't have to pay their fair share.

Common sense tells you that not all the 47% of America's poor are just losers who just need to work harder.  It's really not hard to consider with even a tiny bit of intelligent thinking that there may be an issue with economic policy when the billionaires are making out like bandits and 50 million Americans cannot get basic health care.

It reminds me of when that shithead W. was President.  He was confronted with a voter who proudly claimed to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet.  In a let them eat cake moment he congratulated her on working herself to death under the illusion that she was following the American dream.

The fact that the woman in the above picture is forced to work three jobs just to get an education should not be considered a badge of honor, it should be considered a sad and cautionary tale about what happens when society doesn't give a flying shit about anyone but themselves.  Invest in our future by ensuring easy access to education?  Poppycock, fuck them, if they work hard or join the military, maybe then we'll let them get a degree, which will put them in the running for a job that pays $10 an hour 20 hours a week and has no benefits.

And the sick joke these days is that a college degree in America is now so expensive that it will often take 15+ years to pay back the debt.  So even though a typical college graduate can command a higher salary for their entire career, if you consider the reality that it can take 4-5 years of very limited earnings and debt building just to get qualified, another year or so to get hired, and 15 years or so to pay back the debt and interest, the poor end up screwed either way, even if they do hold down three jobs and post 53% pictures of themselves on the Internet.

At the end of the day I wish more people would listen to the 99% people and stop trying to be clever with their 53% movement.  We have a dire situation in America where we are creating an underclass of extremely poor people who suffer and die, while the wannabe rich middle class Republican Americans keep voting for policies that siphon more and more resources right into the pockets of the millionaires.

We live in the richest country in the world, and if we spent our money in the right way, i.e. in a less selfish manner, we could see to it that people had access to good education, health care and opportunities, and when they fail we could reach out a helping hand rather than turning a blind eye.

I AM THE 99% - I WANT A FAIR SOCIETY THAT RESPECTS PEOPLE

I'd like to end this post with an open letter to the woman who posed for this picture and then posted it online.

First off, given that you were writing that paper for the purpose of the photo, did you really need to point out that you were female?  I mean humans are pretty good at telling the difference, that's how we are able to reproduce.

Secondly, how you can you be enrolled in the equivalent (not equivalence, that is a different word, and maybe if you lived in a society that valued education you'd already know the difference or be able to drop two of your jobs and take an English class) of 21 hours?  I mean, either you are doing 21 credit hours or you are not, right?

Finally, you really need to understand that it isn't cool that you have to work so hard to get a degree.  Being poor or working excessively is not a badge of honor, it is what happens when politicians stack the deck in favor of the rich and leave people like you out in the cold.  The 99% protesters are not lazy people who are demanding the right to sit on their ass and get welfare.  They are simply taking time out to highlight the huge difference in the quality of life between rich and poor.


There are other countries out there far poorer than the United States that give better access to affordable health care and even college education without forcing people to basically become indentured servants just to get a diploma.


The system you are supporting with your photo is what forces you to work yourself to death and accrue ungodly student loans just to pay the tuition fees.  It is the same system that will probably ensure you are still paying on student loans when you hit 30.


Unless people like you understand that the current system is not okay, we are destined to continue to repeat the mistakes of our society.  Sincerely, I hope your education includes some classes on critical thinking, logic, and sociology so that you can better understand the world around you.


Good luck.

Review: Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean XL

In June 2009 I bought my first mechanical watch.  It was the Omega Seamaster 300 (2255.80.00), which I blogged about here.  It was a great watch but unfortunately it wasn't quite all I was looking for in a watch, and once the shiny bezel became a little scuffed, it looked unsightly.  Also in truth, I had always wanted to own the Planet Ocean ever since I first saw one.

In 2011, Omega took their Planet Ocean which was launched in 2005 and made version 2.0 so to speak.  The bracelet was given screws, which is watch circles is considered superior to metal pins.  The aluminum bezel was replaced with a scratch proof ceramic material, much the same as what Rolex decided to do in 2010.  Also a couple of very minor changes were made to the face (applied numerals and a slight font change).  But probably the big announcement is the in house movement, complete with a see through exhibition display back enabling the owner to see the movement of the watch.

The original Planet Ocean has a detailed engraving on the back of the watch depicting the Hippocamp; a mythical seahorse-like creature said to draw Poseidon's (Neptune) chariot.  According to Omega, this has been a fixture on Seamaster watches in one form or another since 1960 when an artisan was inspired by something he saw in Italy.  The connection was said to allude to the waterproof nature of the watch, this model capable of 600m or 2000ft below sea level.

The reason I was prompted to buy this watch right now was the fact that I cannot justify the six thousand or so dollars Omega wishes to charge for their new version.  As nice as it is, I have a hard time with the massive price hike.  While the original Planet Oceans retail at $4,500, a savvy shopper can find an authorized dealer willing to sell for the low $3K area, which while still not cheap is a lot easier to stomach than five or six grand.  If you're willing to just buy off the Internet, I've seen the price as low as $2,700 as of this month.  Keep in mind an unofficial Internet purchase will lower the future resale value.

With that preamble out of the way, I'll go ahead and review my new purchase based on my short ownership of it:

Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean XL 45.5mm 2200.50.00

Box

Part of the excitement of getting a new watch is unboxing, but you can read about that just about anywhere.  Basically it's the standard Omega red box, enclosed in a white cardboard box.  You get an international instruction manual, pictograph card telling you what features the watch has, an international warranty card, and a certification that the watch meets the Swiss chronometer standards (referring to accuracy of the watch, and certifying that specific watch with serial number).  It's all pretty standard stuff.  A smart person will carefully place this box and content, including receipt, somewhere safe.  If you are ever to sell the watch you'll always get more for it with the original packaging and documentation.

Bracelet & Clasp

The bracelet and clasp are brushed stainless steel.  Other options are available, but mesh and leather straps do nothing for me.  This same watch was given a lot of publicity in the Bond movie Casino Royale where James Bond (Daniel Craig) wore the version of this watch that comes on a rubber strap for about half the movie.  It looked good that way, but probably a little too casual for some situations in my opinion, which probably explains why he wears a different Omega Seamaster in the black tie and casino scenes.

Speaking of Bond, I have mixed feelings about the connection.  I think it worked great in Casino Royale for example, but the Pierce Brosnan days where his Omega contained magic weapons and communication devices got a bit silly.

In any case, the bracelet feels solid, and comfortable.  It doesn't catch hairs or jangle, and it has been nicely smoothed so as not to dig into the skin.  The edges are polished, which contrasts nicely with the brushed main surface.

The clasp is engraved with Omega Ω Seamaster Professional Planet Ocean, and the clasp is released by simultaneously pressing two buttons on the sides; an action that is just about impossible to perform by accident.

The only real criticism of the whole bracelet / clasp set up is that the clasp is easy to scratch over time, although supposedly it doesn't take much to brush those scratches out at the jewelers.  As to the bracelet there are no minute size adjustments, so you size the bracelet by removing links or using the supplied 'half-link' which gets you pretty close.

I had a similar 'Speedmaster' bracelet on my last watch and found it did the job very well.

Case

The case is solid and imposing at 45.5mm.  Subtle it ain't.  And apparently the 2011 version is even thicker, which is hard to imagine.  But if you are looking for a slim or lightweight watch, you need to look elsewhere.

Omega has brushed and polished different parts of the case beautifully to reflect light in a variety of different ways, adding a lovely texture to the appearance.

On the back of the watch, you'll find the aforementioned Hippocamp engraving.  There is also a serial number engraved on the watch, along with a special laser etched symbol that is supposed to be hard to fake.  Where the back is removed there is a tiny spot of what looks like red plastic.  Like a wax seal, this will fall off if you take the back off the watch, so if you can still see it, you know it has not been opened since it left the factory.  

Face

The face is matte black, with twelve applied indices that are coated generously with Super-Luminova that glows fiercely in the dark. Each of these is rhodium plated so look shiny and mirror like, matching the arrow hands, which are also quite shiny.  An Omega logo is also applied under the tweleve o'clock spot.

The seconds hand moves seven times a second and is tipped with an orange color.

The numerals are at 12, 9 and 6, and on this model are white, although orange is available on other Planet Ocean configurations.

The date is at the three o'clock spot, white numbers on black, and easily visible.  The date flicks from one day to the next around midnight pretty quickly.

Close to the ten o'clock spot you'll see the helium release valve marked with 'He' - the chemical symbol for helium.  In theory this can be unscrewed in a diving bell to prevent excess pressure in the watch blowing out the crystal.  Since this will affect about 0.01% of people reading this, I'll move on.

At the three o'clock position you'll see a sizable crown.  You can unscrew this to wind the watch, pull out once to adjust the date, pull out one more spot to adjust the time and stop the seconds hand while you do that.

Bezel

The bezel is clean and functional.  As is typical with a divers watch it only rotates counter clockwise and can be used in theory to time how much oxygen you have left.  It looks clean and I like the font choice.

Movement of the bezel is smooth and precise, with 120 clicks for one complete revolution.  The 45.5mm version that I have has scalloped tooth finish, whereas the 42mm version is more coin edge in design.

Movement

The watch contains the Omega 2500 caliber movement which is produced by taking the ETA 2892-A2 movement and heavily modifying it to include the co-axial movement invented by famed watch expert George Daniels.  There are some watch snobs who point out that this movement is not strictly an in-house movement, since ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse and Omega are both owned by The Swatch Group, Ltd., and so is more in-family as opposed to in-house.  But I don't much care.  You are talking about a top of the line and well proven movement, enhanced substantially by Omega to include co-axial technology, which allows the watch to operate with little to no lubrication.  This in turn means that service intervals are 7-10+ years, much longer than a traditional movement.

This mechanical watch winds itself as you move around, and has 44 hours of power reserve.  So if you leave it off for the weekend, you might find it dead on Monday.

As far as accuracy goes, it is an officially certified chronometer, which is always a good start. It seems pretty spot on, with a tendency to run a second or two fast per day.  But it's not fair to draw conclusions in the first few days.

Omega 2500C Movement - As seen with the watch back removed

Conclusion

I love the clean looks of this watch.  I was sitting on a plane the other day.  The guy next to me was wearing a Rolex Submariner that if it were real would probably have cost around six grand.  Next to mine the watch looked small, old fashioned, and unremarkable.  If it wasn't for the cache of the Rolex name, you wouldn't give it a second look in my opinion.

The attention to detail in the design has me admiring it each time I check the time.  To me it is a truly beautiful watch.  It is a massive step forward from my original Seamaster, and I don't regret the purchase at all.

As I mentioned earlier it is a heavy and imposing watch, so if you don't like noticing that you have a watch on, you might consider the lighter and smaller 42mm version, especially if you have smaller wrists.

The anti-reflective coating is applied to both the inside and outside of the crystal, which can make finger prints show up more easily, and is allegedly prone to scratching, prompting some people to remove the outer coating, and leaving the crystal bare.  Thus far this is the only negative I see.

If you think you might like to get an original Planet Ocean, start looking now.  They will not be making any more of these, and you'll be forced to buy second hand or the much more expensive newer version if you want one.

I will probably write an update in a few months and let you know how it's going...