Tissot watches have been ground-breaking timepieces ever since the company first started making watches. The company made the first anti-magnetic watch, the first all-plastic watch, the first rock watch and the first wood watch. Now, with the introduction of the T-Touch, Tissot offers the World's first watch with functions that are activated by a touch sensitive screen.

The Tissot T-Touch isn't going to appeal to everyone. I suspect the main clientele will be young, gadget-loving men who'll want to wear a watch that comes with lots of techno-wizardry. Well, this Tissot watch isn't going to disappoint.

Other watches have offered menu driven feature access before now but the T-Touch menu access differs in that it's accessed by touching the screen (glass) on the watch front. Using this method makes for easy function access; no longer do you have to 'drill down' a hierarchy of menu options; you can access the function directly by touching specific areas of the screen. Also, if you miss the function, you don't have to go back to the start of the menu and begin again.

So, what do you get with the Tissot touch screen watch?

There are 11 functions in all including Compass, Altimeter, Thermometer, Barometer, Chronograph, Alarm, Analog and Digital displays, Stopwatch and Metric/Imperial conversion.

To access the touch screen functions you first have to press the right middle button for two seconds, and then lightly tap various parts of the sapphire crystal to get to where you want to go. Some might argue that first having to hold down a button for 2 seconds is irritating, but imagine if this wasn't necessary; during the day, you would be inadvertently changing the function without knowing it, so each time you looked at the watch there would be some arbitrary function being displayed rather than the time.

Although the functions work perfectly well you should be aware of some points. For instance the thermometer reads ambient temperature, so to be accurate you can't be wearing the watch as you take temperature reading. The instruction manual advised that the watch must be taken off the wrist for 20 minutes before it can take an accurate reading.

The barometer function is referred as meteo by Tissot, which means that you get an indication of meteorological tendencies and not a true reading of isobars. The readout is done by placement of the hands; the 12 o'clock position indicates stable weather, to the right of 12 indicates improving whereas on the left means deteriorating weather. The further away from 12 the hands are, the more extreme the weather prediction. Although some might be disappointed with this 'indication' they might be cheered by the fact that the watch uses data from the last 8 hours.

The altimeter also needs some fine tuning. It calculates approximate altitude but high and low pressure does affect the results. However, you can calibrate it beforehand.

Some of you might be thinking that the functions are a little short of true functionality; however the compass function won't disappoint. Not only does it show magnetic North it can also show you True North. The only caveat is that you must know your declination - the angle between magnetic and geographic north. A true techy will know his/her declination but if not, you can easily find this out online. You simply enter in your declination and hey presto; it'll show you True North.

The watch case comes in either stainless steel or titanium with the dial coming in white, silver, and black. As to the strap, you have a choice of blue, white leather, steel or rubber. The coolest configuration is the titanium case with black face and orange strap - very stylish. I'm not a fan of Tissot watches but I'm a huge one of the T-Touch.