A tool first

I’ve really enjoyed getting into watches lately and this watch is the one that got me hooked. This is also the one that taught me a valuable lesson: watches are first and foremost a tool for measuring time and everything else is secondary. I needed to replace my original watch because I had beat the hell out of it and finally broken it so I grabbed the first G-Shock online that I liked the look of. All I knew about them at the time was that they can take a beating so I grabbed the one that I thought looked pretty cool. I got the G-Shock GA-700UC (not pictured), a big chunky tan watch with analog hands and a negative display. I really liked the way it looked and was genuinely excited to get my hands on it. When it finally arrived and I opened the tin it came in and finally slapped it on my wrist… I hated it. Yeah, it looked cool but it’s usability was severely lacking because of two features. The backlight was disappointing as it was so dim it wouldn’t light up the LCD displays and you still had to squint to see the analog hands. The negative LCD displays were also so difficult to read, it probably wouldn’t have even mattered if it had a good backlight. So I ended up returning it. I didn’t want to get burned again so I did so much research to make sure I got the right watch for me and in the process I developed a love for the watch world. I went with the G-Shock GWM5610-1 (pictured) and everything about it I love. It’s super easy to read, it has a reliable backlight, it has multiple time zones, it’s solar powered, and it has atomic timekeeping. Granted, the Multiband 6 I have to turn off from time to time because it’s not always a good thing to have a radio signal beaming directly to my wrist for certain aspects of the job but it is a feature that I think is so cool that I’ll gladly pay a little extra for that convenience. It has so many features but also nothing I don’t need. Other than feeling the need to add a screen guard and put it on a NATO strap, there is nothing I’d change about it. It may not be as cool looking as my first choice but it is far more functional and that is the most important factor because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if your watch costs $5 of $5000, if you can’t tell the time with it there is no point in wearing it.