Casio G-Shock AWR-M100-1A) Review

So, this is my first ever G-Shock, or even my first Casio for that matter. I wanted a watch that I could wear on my daily runs through the woods close to my house. It needed to be relatively waterproof and shock-resistant. (I ran into a tree before, and had a near-collision with a whitetail.) So, G-Shock was the first brand that came to mind. I'm a bit old-school and wanted watch hands, and this model was reasonably priced just under $90. I also liked that it was solar-powered and featured atomic timekeeping.

Talking about that: It feels a bit weird to take a watch out of the box, and you don't need to do anything but put it on. The watch was perfectly set, and the power reserve was still on high. During the first night it synced itself and corrected the 1s it was off compared to my smartphone. 

While the watch features alarms, world time and stopwatch functionalities, you don't need to concern yourself with that unless you want to. There is even a way you can move the hands out of the way if they block a digital readout, only to return to the current time when you're done. Watching these hands move by themselves is a bit eerie. I also found that the watch was missing with my head: With the analog hands I intuitively expected analog seconds, when I looked at the seconds first, I expected digital hours and minutes (which you can configure). 

The watch came with a plastic display stand, which I found a bit odd. But I guess you can always use it to prop up the watch while charging on the windowsill. The manual was very sparse and I needed to look up a decent amount of the functionality online.

I can say that this lightweight watch was comfortable to wear while running, and I have certainly come to appreciate the no-fuss attitude, meaning that I simply have to put it on when I feel like it, and make sure that it gets some light in the meantime. I am sure that this watch will see plenty of weekend use.

The wristband looked very ... hmm ... low-budget, but it is far more comfortable than I thought. The watch also does not look grossly disproportionate on my wrist, but wears rather similar to my divers. However, it also does not have the rugged military appearance that you get with some of G-Shocks pricier models. It also lacks the sensors that these models feature.

Overall I can only recommend the watch at this price, if you are simply looking for something to reliably tell the time outdoors.