Customer Reviews

Casio Men's GW530A-1V G-Shock Atomic Tough Solar Watch

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

As a kid I was a digital watch nut, then for a long time I wore the more dressy analog style watches. Somehow I came across the newer Gshock watches and was amazed at the technology they packed into such a small device. So I decided to go with a solar powered atomic watch and this is the model I chose out of looks and the fact that the display constantly shows month, day, and date.

Other reviews have covered the functionality, comfort, and ease of use. I thought I would instead touch on a few unique features I didn't know until after the purchase. More of a fun facts list, if you will:

-At night, the watch enters an energy save mode beginning at 11PM. The entire screen goes blank while you sleep and will remain off until the screen is exposed to bright light or you press any button. You can end the energy save mode at any time during the night, but if you're asleep in the dark so is your watch.
-During the normal energy save time at night is when the Atomic update occurs automatically. Starting at 2AM your watch will scan for the Atomic signal for its daily update. It will then scan at 3AM, 4AM, and 5AM as well, regardless of if it worked on the first attempt or not. You can later check to see what date and time the last atomic update occurred. You can also manually update whenever you wish.
-If it's dark and you look at your watch the backlight will automatically turn on for 1 second so you can view the time. The internal sensor detects when you have your arm at your side vs. when you raise your arm parallel to the ground in the typical "watch viewing" position. When you reach that angle, the light comes on without you needing to press any buttons.
-If you travel it's easy to set your watch to any timezone simply by scrolling through the list of cities already stored in the watch. Just pick a city in your current timezone and you're set.
-I've successfully received atomic updates in Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, Knoxville TN, Sheboygan WI, and Southern California. It's hard to get an update inside or around large buildings. Quite easy to receive an update at the beach or in open outdoor areas.

Overall I'm very pleased with the purchase. Amazon shipped quickly and safely. The watch feels very durable and I imagine it will last for many many years.

Pros:
- Very nice black finish with light black offset color for the face; makes it one of the best looking G-Shocks around with a resin band
- Easy to program, update, etc.
- The solar cell seems to be top-notch, never going below full charge
- Even though it is large, it is quite light; light enough not to notice
- The resin band is quite comfortable
- Does not show scratches - my arm hit a cement pillar and not a scratch to be seen

Con:
- Only con for me is the size - it is quite tall. That doesn't even really bother me except when I wear a dress shirt I can't fit it under the cuff.

This watch is amazing. My favorite two features are: the atomic receiving function and the solar charging. My last G-Shock broke after getting the battery replaced. With solar charging I don't have to worry about replacing the battery. The only function that I can think of which it lacks, is a countdown timer (but I don't need that). A fun feature it has is: when you tilt the watch towards your face (in the dark) the back light comes on.

I purchased this watch about 3 months ago and so far I've been very happy with it. The auto-adjust feature is working well so far. I live in southern California and once I found a "good spot" in my home and leaving the watch there every night, it's usually successfully syncs 90% of the time and the watch is very accurate even without syncing so going a couple of says without syncing is not a problem.
You can find good reception spot/positions by pushing the receive button and then the "satellite dish" icon shows you the signal strength, so you can move your watch around until you find a location that has the best reception and then leave your watch there at night for auto sync to do its work.

Pros:
- Auto adjust.
- Solar powered (so far the charge indicator is always showing fully charged).
- World time: you can select a different time zone and also it allows you to manually select the day light saving time for it (it would have been nice if it could select DST automatically but it's not a big deal).
- When switching between different screens, a distinct beep let's you know that you're back in the first screen, so you don't have to look at your watch.
- The "Automatic EL" feature is nice which is activated by turn of your wrist so that your watch is facing you. Also if there is enough light, the feature is not turning on needlessly so you can have AutoEL on all the time and not to worry about loss of battery charge.
- The dial glass seems to be very resistive to scratches and it is recessed so the probability of brushing it against something and scratching it is very low.
- Not too heavy and not too light, also the size seems to be just right for an average build person.

Cons:
- The interface is not as good and straightforward as Timex watches.
- The countdown feature is missing. I would have traded time memo for it.
- The screen is not as easy to see from all angles compared to for example Timex Expedition.

I was deployed to Iraq for a year and i wanted to get a good, tough watch. This was a perfect suite for me. had everything i needed, easy to read, fit very comfortably, and was able to withstand the extreme heat.

Casio is top notch. The auto set and the solar battery make it worth the purchase alone. Only drawback is the small size of the characters on the face but at least its all there. Terrific watch.

I originally picked up a Timex Expedition and while it was sufficient it wasn't a Gshock so I returned it and picked up this unit. Upon firt putting the watch on I noticed it was a bit bigger then a standard watch but given it's durability and features I was anticipating that however if you're the type with skinny wrist it can take a few days for them to get used to it. I am typically very adept at understanding electronics from the get go so I strapped it on and started hitting buttons, HALT! For the first time in a while I had to open to manual which I hated so I jumped online and downloaded it in PDF form from Casio's site. I'm going to review each mode; and some feature reviews.

Time Keeping Mode
Works well no complaints, some people complain about the display being too small but I would say in relation to the Timex I didn't have any issues. Date and Day are a bit smaller but how often do you look at those? Pressing the "Get" button on the bottom right displays the last time it synced which is nice to know. The top right button displays that last time memo, I'll discuss this feature later. Top left buttom is to adjust the time manually and turn off automatic updates. At first I thought this was a bit harder to reach but I realized I don't do it often so it's not as big an ergonomic issue as I thought it was. Bottom left changes the mode.

World Time Mode
On the Timex a single button displays an alternate time breifly on the Casio you need to switch to world time. In my line of work I call on all different time zones I set this to PST(LAX on the watch) and glance at it from time to time before I make a call to see if I'm going to get a hold of them. The top right and bottom right cycle through the different zones east to west respectively. Nice feature but I don't think it's extremely useful unless you call overseas or need multiple time zones and can't do math.

Time Recording Mode
I would say this is about my only complaint with merit, the Timex comes with a countdown timer which is great for cooking, putting my three year old in time out, etc.. With this unit on the main screen you can hold down the Time Memo button and it records the time and date of the memo. It will do this up to 30 memo's so in theory I could save the time and quickly hit Time Memo to reference the last memo to see how long it's been since I saved it but that's cumbersome and not automated. I would gladly give this up for a count down and I think other reviews have agreed. I can't think of a practical application for this other then dressing up what isn't a great substitute for a countdown timer.

Alarm
There are three alarms, a snooze alarm I haven't quite figured out and the ability to turn the hourly signal on and off. The alarms are fairly easy to use however, the Timex had the ability to set an alarm to Week Days, Week Ends, or Daily which was useful and you didn't have to turn off the alarm on the weekends or hit off at 4:30 in the morning(I try to run early) The alarm is a little quiet and unlike the Timex the display doesn't flash which was kind of a nice feature.

Stopwatch
Works fine, a lot like a stop watch it does have a lap time but unlike the Timex which displays the lapped time and the current it holds the lap time until you hit it again and it goes back to real time. Pretty basic stop watch in my opinion.

Display
There are three round digital displays spanning the top of the unit, the first is larger then the second two and simply allows you to glance down and see approximately where in the hour you are but it seems unnecessary like a sort of quasi analog display. The second displays battery life and the third has markers indicating things like Daylight Savings time, Alarm on, Hourly Signal on, Snooze Alarm on, Auto EL and SPL.

Atomic Update Feature
I'm always weary of this on anything because I've had atomic clocks and because of my distance(3 hours from the Atlantic coast) I've had spotty reception. When I got the unit yesterday the "Recieve" button told me the last update was 2 and half months prior which worried me because it supposively updated nightly. I held the Recieve button down and let it go into update mode several minutes later I got the Error message, to be fair I was inside 20 feet from the nearest window at 3PM. Later I got home and tried again this time when the watch on a window facing North on the second story of my house, Error again. The third time was on the second story facing south, Error so I took it to the lower level and placed it in the window facing west, the next morning I woke up and it said at 3:08 it recieved the signal. I jumped on time.gov because I'm a time freak and already knew of the site and it was accurate to the second. If you're the type to wear your watch constantly this poses a problem. Taking my watch off and finding a westerly facing window may be a problem or just annoying but the feature did it's job when it worked. Oh and the "four times a day" is 2AM, 3AM, 4AM and 5AM I believe. There is a small display that shows the signal strength and since updating shows full strength so we'll see tonight.

Solar charger
I can't speak to this yet but I'm outside daily and it says you only need 5 minutes of sun light to charge the battery or 8 hours of indoor lighting which I also have, the watch face contains the solar cells but it isn't very noticable.

Auto EL
This is a pretty cool feature, when you rotate your wrist toward your face in a certain level of light the light on the watch will come on automatically. This is benefecial at night or early morning so you're not fumbling for the light button. One thing I've found when running I slightly turn my wrist and glance, you almost have to bring it to eye level and twist your wrist to turn it on. I also don't know how to extend the time the light is on if at all possible.

There are three circular indicators on the face of this watch. I'm puzzled by the one on the left. It's not mentioned anywhere in the manual. Does anyone know what its function is?

Update: As suggested by two commenters, this mystery indicator *does* do something -- every 5 minutes it shows another bar. My follow-up question, then, has to be "WHY???" What use is this feature? The little bars inside the mystery circle are tiny and very difficult to see. So why take up space on the watch face for that? Seems like a poor use of space. I'd much rather have no third circle, in return for slightly larger time digits as are on some other G-Shock models.

I have had this model for about two and one-half years. I had two other G-shock watches that I handed down to my sons, since this watch does everything I need. It's solar and is fully charged after about five minutes of daylight on a regular basis. It's atomic so the time is always set (it attempts to set itself at 2:00AM, 3:00AM, 4:00AM and 5:00AM and takes about three minutes). WiFi will interfere with the reception on the watch. I've found that it generally sets best when I wear it to sleep or keep it in a room far from any WiFi devices. Even then, if it doesn't set and I absolutely need it to set, I can put it near the window in my office and set the receive-mode and the time updates. It also sets itself automatically for Daylight Saving Time. If you live in Arizona, the DST mode can be disabled. It has multiple time-zones, several alarms (which I really find useful - especially the "snooze" every five minutes!) and the auto-EL feature (if desired).

I've had no issues with this watch. I skate and have taken some hard slams with this watch (and with my other G-Shock watches). Tough as nails, reliable time-keeping, and with no battery to worry about changing (though my other G-Shock G100-1BV in navy blue for eight years before it needed a battery).

I'm only considering a new G-Shock now because of the all white case & band - it looks awesome.

When I am driving, I seem to compare my G-Shock to my car dashboard quite a bit. You got the 3 circle panels on the face with the red hightlight like my car dial. Other than that this one of the coolest looking G-shock. By now you probably read that it receive solar energy to the purple face on the surface and sync with the atomic clock in North America or about 2,000sq miles from the Fort Colin Colorado every morning.

Features:
Like most G-shock it got your typical stop watch functions and 3-4 alarms, but I don't quite understand the time memo, but that is not a big deal. The backlight is good, but hasn't figured how the auto-light turn on yet.

The diameter of the watch is average and not as big as the pathfinder series nor other dials watches, but what makes it big is the plastic band. Since the band doesn't have a screw nor axle to pivot its fit is basically the band flexing. I fine this a little uncomfortable for my wrist and it leaves a little imprint. If I open one more notch it become too lose, but everybody wrist is different. The depth of the watch is quite thick and may not fit under some dress shirt cuff. I have tried the Casio GW002KA-3V, which is almost the same, but it has a smaller depth to it.

Comparing:
Well this black face I got for this model does not look grey or gunmetal back as shown on the picture. I saw that gunmetal grey at the store (light reflection maybe), but I order my online and I got a black that is like the band of the watch or similar to the Shock MT-G Solar Atomic color. Not a big deal, but I like the darker black more. Also the GW500 has all the features as this one the GW530 except for the cover piece color.

Sadly, I encountered the Casio Pathfinder PAW1300 (with more bells and whistles) and had enough time to exchange the two, plus the Pathfinder band felt more comfortable and was not as thick of a profile/depth. The built quality and design is high, the 4 side buttons are hard to press sometime and the manual has all the steps, but could have been easier to read.