Product: Casio G-Shock MTG-1000 Watch
MSRP: $400
Author: Linas
Date: April 15, 2009

Watches have been around for centuries. Today, with the surge of portable electronics featuring timekeeping functions, is there still a need for a quality wristwatch? We will be looking at the Casio MTG-1000 from the G-Shock line to see if it is worth your time.

First Impressions/Appearance

The first thing to notice about this watch is the sheer size of it. Everything about it seems big and durable, from the face to the clasp. It has some considerable heft to it, and, with the polyurethane bits, it is quite tall. This is the most solid-feeling piece of equipment I have had a chance to use.

As nice as this watch feels, it looks a little ‘busy’ if you plan on wearing it to any more formal functions (unless you happen to be shooting for a bit of geeky-flair). One gripe I had with this watch is that it looks very deep, meaning that when looking at the watch, it seems almost like you are looking to the bottom of the pot or can to tell the time. I’m not sure if this was intended (as some of the markings go up the sides) or just bad luck (because of the ruggedizing treatment), but either way, it takes some getting used to.

Use

Coming from the land of mechanical watches with only time and date functions, I was a little shocked by everything this watch could do and display. Initially, I was dumbfounded by the four buttons used to set it and control everything (which might seem all too easy for seasoned digital watch-wearers), but, after a quick visit to the manual, I was able to use most of the watch’s features.

A feature I found particularly satisfying was the clasp mechanism. It is incredibly aggressive in appearance, and supported by some very solid hinges. Despite being a little alarmed at the pointy-ness initially, I found absolutely no troubles with this setup during my testing.

The implementation of the second hand, however, is a little awkward. Rather than the long hand on the main dial (what one would consider the second hand on most watches), a small subdial at the bottom is used to display the seconds. The hand on the main face is used as a selection tool. It allows the user to activate daylight savings time or the alarm, but I would rather see it used to show the seconds.

Besides being incredibly complicated (or impressive) and keeping track of time ridiculously well, there isn’t much to say about this watch.

Functions

This watch is effectively a digital watch with some motors to provide analog displays. As a result, it does things most people wouldn’t expect at first.

The alarm function on this watch is the same as any other digital watch. It will wake up a light sleeper, but I would not count on it as my everyday wakeup. The sound is similar to any other watch alarm that goes off at inconvenient times.

The atomic clock synchronization of this watch works flawlessly. The watch stayed on track during my entire use of it (a welcome change from ending up a few minutes fast with a mechanical watch). Also impressive was the calendar function, where the watch automatically advances the extra days at the end of some months (rather than automatically going to 31, and forcing the user to spin forward the next day(s)).

The solar power setup seems nice. After taking it out of the box I never had to worry about making sure the watch was charged. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test the length of time the watch would stay charged, or how long it took to charge thanks to a lack of ‘charge meter’ and many months.

Build Quality

This watch feels almost bulletproof. Everything on this watch is smooth, tight, and polished. During my few weeks with it, I never found anything loose or irritating (physically). But how can you really be assured the workmanship in this example? By testing scenarios that probably won’t happen in everyday life!

Extreme Testing

To ensure that this watch lives up to the hype, we should take care to test situations most people do not find themselves in, but could. To test this I developed a quick and dirty battery of tests. I plan to: boil the watch, freeze the watch, strike the watch with a hammer, and drive over the watch with my automobile.

Test 1:
To start things off, I boiled and froze the watch to see if I could soften it up. To my surprise, absolutely nothing happened. Even leaving the watch directly in contact with the bottom of the pot while boiling did nothing to damage the watch.

Test 2:
Next on the block was the hammer test. For this, I took a sledge hammer, put the watch on my driveway, and took four swings at it. The results turned out something like this:
Swing 1 – The band shattered to pieces, but the actual watch was still fine.
Swing 2 – Nothing happened.
Swing 3 – A little bit of the plastic around the face got dinged up.
Swing 4 – I caught the glass straight on and put a crack in it.
Despite the near destruction of the watch, it continued ticking, and, just because I didn’t want to avoid my favorite test, I proceeded on to the ‘drive over the watch in my car’ test.

Test 3:
For this test, I put the watch on the ground behind my car, reversed over it with both wheels, then drove back over it. The results might look a little frightening, crushed glass all around, and the glass pushed into the path of the hands (this is the only point where it actually stopped ticking). I am quite certain, though, that this test would have ended very differently if the the crack was not already in place, as the only parts affected by this test were directly next to the crack.

Conclusion

This watch is a bit pricey, but it will certainly be worth that cost to some. If you are into new and exciting gadgets, this could be your fix (with all the automatic functions and shiny dials). If you are looking for a durable watch, but don’t want to make the switch to digital, this is for you. If you want a watch that balances everyday wear with class and sophistication (and a bit of geeky excitement), look right here. If you just want a watch to tell the time, you can find a better bargain. And if you think this watch will make you into something like James Bond, this watch doesn’t quite do it.

Pros:

+ Accurate
+ Rugged
+ No worry about batteries
+ Lots of dials

Cons:

+Pricey
+Not bulletproof

Tags: Casio, G-Shock, MTG-1000, Rugged, Watch