Phatfish

First of all I love this watch. I have a smaller wrist and the dimensions are perfect to give a nice masculine large watch look without it looking ridiculously huge on me. Movement has been smooth and accurate running at ~+10 secs a day which is well within spec. It also only deviates about +-2 seconds from the +10 so I but if I had it regulated it would be close to spot on. Quick change date is sweet as well and seems to turn over about 4 min before midnight.

One nitpick is the bezel on the all black edition. Tungsten shouldn't really scratch...but this is tungsten that is coated black. I got a scratch in the coating and you can see a bit of the silver metal underneath. Pretty dumb to do this with tungsten, they would have been much better using the titanium carbide stainless steel on the bezel as well. The rest of the watch (with the exception of the clasp that I rub on my desk all day) is looking perfect!

I have the under glove version of these that I picked up at a burton sample sale late last season. These seem to fit a bit larger than some other gloves (usually a M, but the L fit me in these). If you're on the fence I would go with the larger size. These have always kept my digits warm and dry. I've never really had to think about these gloves and to me that means they're doing their job well. Now, perhaps I got a pre-production version of these gloves, or perhaps someone swiped the liner, but there isn't a removable liner in mine, just a nice fixed microfiber one. Also I didn't see anything about these gloves using outlast nor do I see a zippered pocket...I think backcoutry might have their description a bit off. Great gloves though.

Nit pick: I did notice some wear on the leather already.

I have the zebra frame with the smoked lens. Its frustrating how Anon's web site doesn't really explain all their lens. They cover some of them, but the majority of the ones offered on this goggle line have no information or its not clear which one you have. The frame is probably my favorite one I've tried though. Its pretty similar to the phenom, and A-frame in that it fits smaller faces. The nose foam seems pretty low profile and doesn't sit too close to my eyes like some of the other smaller framed goggles do.

Let me start off by saying the sensor mirror is the best non bluebird lens I've used. If there is even a hint of a cloud in the sky I reach for that lens. I had a pair of the prodigy frames and while I loved the lens, the frame didn't fit my smaller face so well. I picked up the phenoms on steep and cheap after reading reviews that the frame was bit smaller. Indeed it is, and it fits my face perfectly. Strange thing is that while the frame fits without any gaps it seems the nose foam is a bit too close to my eyes unless I situate it just right. I also have a pair of Anon Solace goggles that have about the same fit on the face, but the nose foam on the Anon's seems to be trimmer and doesn't require any adjustment to feel right.

Wow, I'm really impressed with this board. I used to ride hard boots so I wanted a stiffer freestyle board that could still lay down a carve without the board turning into a wet noodle. Man, magne traction is no joke in these early season conditions. It really works and surprised me that it didn't seem to interfere at all with laying down some turns (I thought it was just for sliding around the mountain with detuned edges). Base has also seemed really durable too. Nailed a number of rocks pretty good and it just has a few small scratches in it. Heads up that this board is STIFF though. I don't buy lib tech's scale as this thing is way stiffer than the banana despite it being only one or two numbers stiffer on their scale. Sweet ride, and seems to do everything well.

I'm not very impressed with these pants. While the windowpane print does look really cool (and almost got them a 3 star rating) I'm ultimately returning these due to poor performance. I don't buy the 15k breathable rating one bit. They are basically like your normal pu layer lined rain coat. No fleece or mesh lining on the shell to absorb moisture while the pu layer does its thing. Basically you're left with a pair of unlined rain pants that get all clammy and stick to your skin when used without the included fleece liner.

As far as the removable fleece liner goes, the liner itself is pretty nice, but the zipper used to integrate the two pieces is tiny and has already come apart on me about 3 times.

Fit is quite baggy. I'm 160, 5'9" and got a medium and have to wear a belt to hold them up. On that note the adjustable waist bands are kind of nice, but they have this hard plastic grip thing on the ends of them. This makes them easy to adjust, but if you use a belt, it rests on top of these plastic pieces and creates a pressure point.

Pros on these pants are that the vents work flawlessly and have never snagged on me. Pockets also have been good and are very useful. Pants also seem to be very water proof and have a nice feel to them. There are also a lot of nice subtle style and attention to detail features on these pants with little 686 emblems everywhere.

Too bad these pants fail on some of the core functionally I'm looking for in a snow pant.