Skmei 1628 Review

Having been through a lot of Casios and Skmeis over the years, I have to say that this is the cheapest one I've ever bought from AliExpress. At only £3.31 (before tax), it's almost incredible what you can get for very little money nowadays.

Once again, beginning by addressing the elephant in the room, the Skmei 1628 is a 1:1 clone of the Casio DW5600 but with only 50m of water resistance rather than 200m. As you know from my paddling pool tests, 50m is more than enough for me, and 200m is something I'd never see the advantage of.

Just like a G-Shock, you can't lay this watch flat because of the strap. Supposedly this aids in shockproofing the watch in case of a fall, but it's kind of annoying when you want to take pictures for a review.

Laying the watch on its side for a picture also reveals that the viewing angles make the digits look dark grey rather than stark black, but there's no shadowing or screen full of 8s because Skmei have addressed those problems for over a year now.

The stainless steel caseback is a standard Skmei 4 screws in the corners affair just like most Casios. The CR2025 battery inside (with its reference number usefully engraved on the caseback) should last at least a couple of years before it needs to be replaced.

There's a stainless steel buckle (unsigned) on the extremely comfortable silicon strap too. The strap is much softer than the ones on a Casio G-Shock.

The Skmei 1628 has all the usual functions which you'd expect including an alarm which can be set to daily, a specific date, or the same day every month.

It also has a weird notification icon which is decorative and associated with no functions whatsoever. It begins appearing at 2 seconds, disappearing on the 7 seconds, reappearing at the 8 second point, and disappearing on the 0 seconds again making it appear very random. On the real Casio, I think the icon has something to do with the alarm scheduling.

Turning the alarm on and off on the 1628 means pressing the light button in alarm mode, and toggling the 12/24 time feature can only be done in time setting mode by pressing the light button there too. Annoyingly unintuitive, but it's okay once you know.

The timer is perfect for pizza, and as you can see, the current time is displayed in the little box in the top right corner just like a real G-Shock.

There's dual time for those special people who can't add or subtract within a 12 hour range and memorise it. I have mine set to somewhere in America just because it's there.

And, of course, there's a stopwatch which none of us will ever use.

The star of the show is the Skmei EL backlight which is absolutely terrifying in the dark and just as bright in semi-darkness.

You can light up the whole room with the backlight. Why you'd want to is another matter. Might save a few pence on the electricity bill, I suppose.

Time to compare apples with oranges...

The Sanda version of the Casio 5600 is equally fantastic and cheap (at £4.50), but it's 50mm across not 44mm like the Skmei 1628 which is closer to the dimensions of the Casio. Apparently, you can put a real G-Shock DW5600 case (or a cheap replacement one from AliExpress) on the Skmei 1628 if you really want to.

The full metal Skmei is 44mm and has almost the same module as the 1628, but there's no decorative indicator flashing randomly (not that it's even all that noticeable in normal use), the home time isn't displayed when you change modes, and the alarm is very quiet because of the metal case.

My real G-Shock has more functions (pretty much the same as a Casio AE-1000 or AE-1200), and it's a big round one with a very uncomfortable strap which digs in and leaves indents. I barely wear it, and for this reason, I didn't need a real G-Shock square with hard to press buttons for another £80 when I could get a Skmei for a total of £4.23 from AliExpress.

The one thing I needed the Skmei for more than anything else is for timing pizza. Okay, so I scorched my Hawaiian a little bit (make up you own inappropriate jokes), but I used the timer for my dinner today. It wasn't the Skmei's fault that I was watching Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer in Gone Fishing rather than paying attention to it.

The alarm on these plastic Skmeis is plenty loud enough, and I never set the hourly chime to on because that can be very annoying (just like me).

I recommend the Skmei 1628 to anyone who doesn't want to play Casio's new game of ripping people off with their continuously rising UK prices which seems to be based on popular colours rather than any technological innovations. I also recommend it to cheapskates everywhere who just want a very nice watch for a ridiculously small amount of money.