zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

: Hello Omega owners,

: I just found this forum searching for
: information on problems relating to
: magetism. I wear a Omega Speedmaster
: Automatic from the late 80s on a daily
: basis. Me and my wife own a few other
: mechanical watches. And I am sure there will
: be more in the future.
: I am now in need of a new laptop computer and
: started looking into buying my first Mac,
: possibly the new MacBook that just came out.
: What does that hav e to do with watches?
: Well, I found out that the new Apple
: MacBooks use magnets for their closing
: mechanism and to hold the powercord in
: place. That is nice and stylish, but I am a
: little concerned of having my watch
: constantly placed next to some sort of
: magents (not to speak of credit cards,
: keyless entry systems, tapes, disks, etc in
: a backpack or so).

: I called Apple and they had no technical
: information about the strength of those
: magnets and not even about their exact
: location. So there is no much data to work
: with at this point, but I was curious if any
: one here has any information or experiences
: with issues like this.

: Thanks.

I absolutely agree with John on this. But I think would be OK to wear the watch near the laptop. If I were you, I'd be much more concerned about the Mac's HDD (Hard Disk Drive). But HDD and magnet's are a much worse combination than magnets and watches (HDD magnetize certain parts of the platter to create the ones and zeros that represent your saved data).

I'm pretty sure that Apple thought about this, and if it can't hurt your HDD, then it should be safe for your watch.

I know this isn't a computer forum, but if you're a note-taking student, have you looked at IBM's(actually Lenovo's) 'new' X41 TabletPC? (Just to be a little watch-related I'll just say that this laptop doesn't use magnets where the Apple does....)