the buckle is matte-black steel

Note that there's also a night mode, where any button press lights up the Inidiglo; convenient but hard on the battery. The integrated band has decorative hex head bolts, which may or may not fasten it to the case. In addition to the rubber here, there's also a nylon version available. On the black/green version, the buckle is matte-black steel, very nice. It's thin enough to be comfortable for extended wearing, too. Here's a comparison shot with an analog-digital Timex I bought and have been meaning to review - you can see that it's dwarfed by the WS4, but not as much as you might think. It also shows the comfortable curvature of the strap. As with other ABC watches, the temperature gauge is no good while worn; your wrist is too distracting. Given the size of the WS4 and it's extreme temperature rating (-10 to 50C), you could easily wear it over your coat, though, and get accurate readings. Here's another angle of the two Timexes, showing their comparable thickness. The WS4 appears to be much larger than it is; the blocky case and superwide strap give a wrist presence much more imposing than reality. Here are a series of wrist shots. I've got approximately 7.25" wrists, by way of comparison. The WS4 sits very comfortably, and though you'll not miss it's presence it is quite comfortable to wear. I wore the WS4 mountain biking around town, and the WS4 performed well: Even while bouncing along (cheap bike with rigid frame), the analog hour display was readable, and the big digits on the bitmapped area were readable too. The graphical display of altitude was nice, though I only used that to review the ride once I was done.I should mention another feature that I really like on this watch, the alarm. Long ago relegated to checkbox status, innovation in this area has languished. Not so on the WS4: By using the bitmapped display for prompts, you can easily select that it ring on weekdays, weekends, a specific day only, with five-minute backup alert. I used it to wake up on weekdays, and rather enjoyed not having it go off Saturday morning.