Customer Reviews

Casio GWM5600-1 G-shock Watch, Black Multiband, Atomic for Men

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had a G-Shock when they first came out 25 yrs. ago. I put it through it's paces while in the military and ended up giving it to a friend who was in need of such a tough watch. A few years later when I took the time to look at the G-Shocks again I was surprised to see how greatly the styling had changed. Gone were the rugged-looking squared off edges and straight lines, replaced instead by near-bizarre looking faces with all sorts of whistles and bells. I was therefore glad to see Casio recently offer up a few "throwback" models. In addition to the ruggedness and great styling, the solar powered aspect is a really comforting thing--it charges effortlessly; the battery has a much, much longer expected life than a typical quartz one; it keeps quartz-like accuracy; and you're "going green" with a watch like this. Add to all of this the middle-of-the-night signal adjustment from Ft. Collins (mine receives it's signal almost every night, even if I'm wearing it while sleeping) and it's tough to think of a better looking, better performing digital watch.

You'd think with the "5600" suffix they would have just taken the venerable DW5600 and just added solar and atomic time - but they had to go and mess with it. In short, the watch has a couple "Huh?" moments that make you wonder what the designers were thinking:

Countdown timer is only an hour, not 24 hours - but the stopwatch goes for 999 hours. Huh?
Doesn't show time in all modes. (nice to have in the 5600)
No second time zone. (to be fair, the new 5600s dropped this too)
Can't set countdown in seconds, but it counts down in 1/10 seconds? (can't use it for interval training, this irked me the most)
No auto-repeat of timer. (same as above)

Plus I hear that the batteries in these solar models don't last any longer than if you bought a 5600 and just used regular ole dimestore lithiums - which are like a fifth the cost. Note that I didn't ding it for this, but go do your own research on how long the batteries really last if you are buying this in order to not have to buy batteries again. People have had non-solar 5600s running on their original batteries for ten years.

I sent this one back and bought a DW5600E. If the GW5000 turns out OK I might get one of those.

Great watch, better than I expected. Syncs itself every night to the Atomic Clock, charges itself from sunlight, has a feature to disable the Daylight Savings Time (great for us Arizona residents). Automatically shuts down the display when it sits still in darkness in order to save battery life, it will come back on when moved or when it gets bright enough. Much slimmer profile than I thought, too, so it's not such a monster on your wrist.
Great, tough watch with some nice features!

I purchased this Casio GWM5600-1CR watch from Amazon (via JustCalculators - the seller) about a month ago. It arrived quickly - in just 3 days (with "Standard" shipping). It arrived undamaged and fully charged. It was very easy to set the date, time, etc following the clear instructions in the manual.

It was easy to set the time via the atomic clock in Colorado. The correct day & time was accomplished on the first try (took only about a minute). It has kept perfect time ever since (it displays the exact same time, to the second, as my 2 other atomic clocks I already own). Even when I wear it to bed at night!

The watch is lightweight and its thin design sits nicely on my wrist without any bulk (as compared to the Casio MudMan watch I also own which is very big & bulky). The solar cell stays in the "High" (full) charge mode almost all the time. Sometimes it will drop to "Medium" overnight, but in less than the time it takes to drink 1/2 cup of coffee while it sits exposed to the sun, the charge will quickly return to "High" (full) charge.

I wore it on my recent 6-day vacation in Mazatlan, Mexico. Swam with it in the ocean & the pool with no problems. When I returned home, it still matched the same time (to the second) as my 2 other atomic-synced clocks at home. It's been a week since I returned from sunny Mexico and the solar cell has stayed at "High" (full) charge all the time (even overnight).

No one has really mentioned the "Auto" light feature which I think is great. When it's dark (at night or in a dark room), all you have to do is raise your wrist and tilt it slightly to see it and the auto-light comes on (brightly) for about 2 seconds so you can see the time, date, etc on the face. No need for an extra hand to push a button to light up the face. Great feature.

I would highly recommend this watch to anyone who has a "thing" for accurate time and easy "set & forget" function.

Great watch - all the build quality you expect from Casio. I love the retro-83 design and have wanted one of these for ages.
The solar panel is cleverly integrated around the outside edge of the screen, inside the red stripe (very hard to see in the photographs on the web sites) and the whole unit feels very sturdy. The display is crystal clear and the electro-luminescent lighting works well, evenly illuminating the whole face.
The buttons are well recessed, meaning few accidental button actuations.
I have not been able to get the time-synchronization working in Anchorage, but then it tells in the manual that it probably won't work this far North.

The only thing wrong with it is that the count-down timer is limited to one hour. I would vote for Casio to get rid of the tenths-of-a-second on the display (who needs a timer down to 10ths of a second?) and put the hours back in.
Other than that the two other desirables to have would be alarms with dates and an alarm chime that lasts for longer than 10 seconds, but I can live without them.

Dimension: 41mm (along arm to wrist), 45mm (along the band, counting the very visible end points of the resin band where they meet the watch), 12mm thickness. This is not a very small watch although the G-shocks are getting to 43mm wide as a norm nowadays. What I do not like about this watch are: at 12mm it is pretty thick; and the resin band attaches to the watch body in a way that you just can't lay the watch flat on the desk -- it will always curl up because of the band. The clasp of the band is shiny stainless-steel. I wish it were colored black as the band.

There are other things that I like. It is pretty, jet black and appears exactly as shown in Amazon photo. I am close to Morgantown in WV and in the midst of the mountains, I was able to manually sync up with Ft Collins signals at 11 pm EDT Monday while facing east on the balcony. Had tried that 3 times earlier without luck: once from inside office building at 2pm; at 4pm from a local mountain top facing west and at 9pm from the same balcony. I noticed, if I get the signal strength as L1 just once during manual setup, the watch could not sync in! When I succeeded at 11pm, the signal strength was mostly L3 with some intersparsed L2.

Watch made in Thailand, module 3063 booklet printed in Thailand. It came well-charged, Power-Save enabled, Auto-light Off. I don't even recall having seen the watch in sleep mode when I opened the box at 12 noon. Has world time that covers pretty much every timezone on earth. Has single display. I mean, you need to press at least one button to see the Japan time while your local city is, say New York City. The watch demands you put in your local city code after the purchase. With Power-save ON and Auto-light OFF you could still illuminate the dial by just pressing one button.

That's all the features I could check on. Others like shock resistance and charge/discharge rates -- only time will tell. By the way, the last page of the 3063 booklet has space for "Warranty Card" and "Official Dealer Stamp" and these spaces were found vacant on receiving.

I have to concur with all the positives that people have written about this little gem. What I will emphasize is the size of the watch. Most G Shock, solar, atomic timed watches sit with a lot of bulk on your wrist. Too much bulk to be comfortable. But this watch is smaller sized.

I was going to purchase a similar Casio watch for about $30 less, but opted for this one because of the anticipated comfort and aesthetic appeal on my wrist. Even with the price differential, I am very pleased with this purchase.

I would also like to add that this was purchased from MyTimepiece.com and their delivery was very fast. I ordered this on Monday, it shipped on Tuesday, and I received it on Thursday. Such things impress me.

Have purchased other Casio digital and analong watches, both as gifts and for my
own use ( though my two sons have claimed most for themselves ), and have found
that this particular watch does everything just right. Syncronizing with the atom-
ic time signal from Colorado occurs everynight; the solar cells have the storage
battery on a constant high; the strap, after being worn for a few days conforms to
the wrist and becomes truly comfortable. The electroluminesent backlight is bright
enough to tell the time without blinding you, and the thickness of the timepeice
itself is not overly great, fitting under long-sleeve shirts without problems or
tightness. The digital readout of time is well displayed, with the characters
being neither too small nor large.
The most important feature of all , however, is accuracy of time. To the second,
it's there whenever needed, with an eight month power reserve when not exposed
to any light to recharge the storage battery.
Easily, then, this watch does it all, very well, very accurately, and it
does it just right.

First off let me say I rarely review items. In fact this is probably the 2nd item I have ever reviewed on Amazon and I am an avid shopper here. Ill keep this short and to the point. Recently decided I wanted to start wearing a watch again as I was tired of digging for my cell phone in my pocket. I am a 1 watch kind of guy and I usually keep things for a very long time. Needed something rugged but not bulky with a set it and forget it mentality. This watch hit all the points flawlessly, highly recommend it.

This is an updated version of the popular 5600. In addition to adding multiband atomic timekeeping and solar power, It is much thinner and less bulky than the original. It's actually just a little bit bigger than a regular digital watch. If you were to compare it to the original 5600, it would look downright dainty.

I like that it now displays both the day and date, instead of one or the other on the face. I also like that it has a countdown timer in addition to a stopwatch. I wish it would display the time in all modes. The buttons are a little difficult to use. Sometimes, you have to take the watch off and use your fingernails.

My main criticism of this watch is that it doesn't synchronize regularly with the atomic clocks. Mine will only successfully synchronize every couple of weeks, so the auto DST feature is not useful. It would be nice if Casio would make a repeater device that I could plug into a wall outlet so that the watch could get a regular synchronization signal at night.