Pardon me, but do you have the time?

Well I had 5 days free of watch obsession. But I spent those days obsessively watching 17 movies in a row. I think there is clearly a personality trait shining through here...but i'll worry about that later. For now, I'm zeroed in on this beauty:

91iRLrd8SOL._UX466_.jpg




It's a solar powered G-Shock but with an ana-digi display. It's part of the G-Steel series and it's a few bucks cheaper than the Rangeman I just sent back. Now this doesn't have the ABC features that I like but it makes up for it with the dual displays. I really like that it's solar because it has dual lights that would drain the battery on a non-solar. It has a indiglo type back-light for the digital complications and an LED light at 6 o'clock for the analog display. It also has lume painted on the hands. To go along with that it has stopwatch, world time, countdown timer, and 5 alarms. It's 200 meters water resistant so I guess that makes this a quartz diver and I like the sound of that. It's big, 52 mm diameter but does not have the protruding buttons that made me send back the Rangeman.

The one thing it doesn't have is atomic timekeeping. That is annoying because they make models that do have it. However those models seem to all have negative displays for the digital windows and I don't like that at all. The models with atomic are also $125+ more expensive so for a lot more money and a display I like less, it's not worth it to me.

I'm going to need a couple more days of intensive research on this thing but so far I really like it.

What do you guys think of it?

Until I make up my mind I will play around with a few mods I just bought for my Protrek. They should arrive by Monday and I'll post pics when I have them installed.
 
I'll just say that each one of my watches has a different color combination and/or level of dressiness. So for whatever I'm wearing and doing, there's usually a clear choice in which one to have on. And yes, I understand that many people (who wear watches) will just wear the same black, gray, or stainless watch with everything. But I like having different watches, and this is the criteria I've decided on.

My only thought is that 52mm sounds quite large. For me, the line between a manly watch and a clowny watch is about 47mm.
 
scotchandcigar said:
But I like having different watches, and this is the criteria I've decided on.
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I'm with ya here. It's nice to have different watches but our criteria is a bit different. While I like various colors, I am also perfectly happy to have multiple watches in similar colors so long as other things (design, layout etc.) are different.

scotchandcigar said:
My only thought is that 52mm sounds quite large. For me, the line between a manly watch and a clowny watch is about 47mm.
Click to expand...

I also hear ya here. But the Rangeman that I sent back did not feel too big with a 53 mm diameter. It was just those freaking buttons on the right side that drove me crazy. Don't forget that I'm a pretty big (nice way of saying fat) guy so these bigger watches wear smaller on me.

All that said, I ran into a big problem with my research today. Turns out they do make a version of that exact watch with atomic timekeeping. It is only sold in Japan and Europe so to get one it is crazy more money.

Behold:

Xng9oDK.jpg


G-steel - GSTS110-1A vs GST-W110-1AJF

The one on the right is atomic. Now I know myself and having a watch missing that feature would drive me crazy. I'm already constantly thinking about how annoying it would be to have a watch with an internal blank space where the atomic antenna should be.

Non-atomic:
Amazon product ASIN B0155FJM6W
Atomic:
Amazon product ASIN B0753DHHV7
That is a crazy price jump for a feature that you can get on sub-$100 Casios.

So now I'm tasked with finding something new. So far I've come up with this:



Amazon product ASIN B07BCSMD3X
This model has many pros and cons.

Pros:
Much cheaper than even the non-atomic G-Steel.
Brand new model. It's only been on the US market for a few weeks.
All the features I wanted from the G-Steel.
More durable with the more traditional G-Shock look.

Cons:
It's not as stunning as the all steel model.

Basically I don't like the look as much. Now I have a decision to make. I know I'm not going to get the non-atomic G-Steel cause that would drive me crazy. So now do I save to buy the much more expensive one for just that one feature or do I settle for a feature-rich model that I don't like quite as much?

For such a significant price drop I am leaning towards settling. Paying around $150 more for 1 feature is simply insane.
 
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memebag said:
If it's atomic why does it need an antenna?
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Atomic is incorrect slang for Multiband 6. The watch receives a radio signal that's sent out from Ft. Collins, CO with the correct time info. So it needs an antenna to get the radio signal. That signal gets its time info from an atomic clock.
 
After spending probably 50% of my time at work this weekend browsing watches, I have now set my sights on this one:

hqdefault.jpg


What do you all think?

I'll post more in-depth thoughts later. And I have a lot of them. There are plenty of Pros and Cons to this model.
 
JHDK said:
After spending probably 50% of my time at work this weekend browsing watches, I have now set my sights on this one:

hqdefault.jpg


What do you all think?

I'll post more in-depth thoughts later. And I have a lot of them. There are plenty of Pros and Cons to this model.
Click to expand...
It's got a cool look to it, but it's big. And what's with all these tools on YouTube wearing string bands? It looks retarded.
 
Strap in, here comes another watch rant.

Casio has this annoying habit of making 2 models of watch that look almost EXACTLY the same but one is lesser-featured and thus cheaper than the other. I showed an example of just that in the pic above of the 2 G-Steel, G-Shocks. So for me this is frustrating because of course I want to pay less but the idea of having a watch with blank space in the internals where the extra stuff should go is enough to make me go mad.

Casio did this with the all digital Protrek models. The one I bought a month ago is the full featured PRW-3000 but they also make PRG-300. The colors and the 12 o'clock marker on the bezel are different but everything else externally about the watch is the same.

Mine:
CASIO-PRW-3000-1DR_01.jpg


Lesser featured model:
PRG-300-1A2.jpg


Now I was able to get the full featured version because it was on a good sale at the time.

So, when I was looking for G-Shocks I ran into this problem. There were cheaper unique ones that were nice but didn't have the features I wanted, there were ones way out of my price range and there were ones that looked just like the expensive models but were missing 1 key feature, like atomic or barometer.

After A TON of G-Shock research I found myself dissatisfied. The ones I really wanted I couldn't afford and the ones I could afford were only "good enough" and still too expensive for what you got. This lead back to Protreks.

For some reason the Protrek ana-digi line broke the pattern of making the 2 models that looked the same. The 100% full featured ana-digi Protreks are way too expensive for me but their lesser line had a few models that I liked a lot and were original designs.

The full featured ana-digi Protrek line is the PRW6000 or PRW7000.

The 7000's are very nice but $700 so they were out of the question right away. The PRW7000:
91EoM8t3OzL._UY500_.jpg


At around $350-$400 I could maybe justify buying PRW6000 if I liked it enough but I don't for a few reasons. The PRW6000:
81ax3e4XO3L._UY500_.jpg


To me this way too similar to the all digital Protrek I already have. It is the exact same band as mine and the bezel is very similar. I also don't like the inner bezel.

So with the 2 higher end models out of consideration I moved on to the $200 PRG600:
916wZE8vBGL._UY500_.jpg


Now in terms of features the only thing this is missing compared to the 6000 models is the atomic timekeeping. I would like to have that but it is def. not worth $150+. This one looks distinctly different from my all digital Protrek and also looks pretty different from the mid range 6000 model. I can't find any pics or videos of it deconstructed so I can't be sure if it has a hole where the atomic antenna should go or if it is a different module all together.

Either way, the difference in price and appearance, plus the fact that I simply don't like the mid range model, is enough to make the lack of atomic timekeeping in this one not such a big deal to me.
 
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JHDK said:
After spending probably 50% of my time at work this weekend browsing watches, I have now set my sights on this one:

hqdefault.jpg


What do you all think?

I'll post more in-depth thoughts later. And I have a lot of them. There are plenty of Pros and Cons to this model.
Click to expand...
I think it looks like a big chunky watch. Not insane with the buttons like that one before, but still too big for non-skydiving use.
 
memebag said:
I think it looks like a big chunky watch. Not insane with the buttons like that one before, but still too big for non-skydiving use.
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That's fair. As far as Casio goes it is on the larger end in terms of diameter. Not the biggest, but up there. Now in terms of thickness it is well below average for higher end Casios. Since it's not a G-Shock it doesn't have a thick layer of resin or steel around the case, making it protrude high on the wrist.
 
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