2012-09-18

Casio RAF G-Shock watch

G-Shock GW-A1000RAF-1AER

It's unusual for me to buy more than one watch from the same maker, at least in the same year, but now it's happened. I decided I wanted this watch when it was first announced, then it was delayed and then it looked like it would be hard to get one of the 2000. (There are or will be similar non-limited models with more colour and less the RAF logo.) But it really wasn't; I got it five days after I ordered.

I like it very much. It's not very complicated, it's on purpose made with rather few features, a lot less than technically possible, because that's how RAF wanted it.



Apart from timekeeping functions the only other function is that it works as a thermometer -- from normal watch mode you access it with a single button press, it shows the temperature second hand + or - C, hour hand tens and minute hand single degrees for ten seconds and then it returns to timekeeping mode. In all this takes about 25 seconds.

It's got 60 minutes countdown timer where the second and minute hand goes counterclockwise.

Stopwatch can time up to 120 minutes with 1/20s precision. Second hand goes one rev per second for the first 30 seconds after you start or restart it, minute hand is seconds and hour hand is minutes.

Of course alarm. Rather quiet, it and the timer's alarm are not really usable for me as I mostly can't hear them.

There's a button which from timekeeping mode shows you if the last radio sync was successful or not and you can use to force sync.

The mode button switches between mode and the first press goes to "world time", usually UTC in aviation context. And here is the only strange thing with the watch's firmware: In world time mode you can't access the thermometer or sync result which I think is unexpected as I imagine you have the watch showing local time on the ground and maybe UTC in the air, which I think the only occasion the thermometer is of any aircrew use.

The crown isn't exactly screw in, but almost as you press it in aligned with the red mark and turn it to the white to keep it in. You can release it by turning it in either direction and then you pull it out to get to settings for the different modes.

Colour is grey, about dark ocean grey. Apart from the red markings on the button and crown the only other spot of colour is the WT mode marking which is  on blue background.

In use I've found that it's often a good idea not to have it in timekeeping mode. Makes for less stress if you just park the hands. You can't do this with most multifunction watches, but this one's philosophy is that if you need countdown or timer then it doesn't matter what time it is.

A bit expensive for what it does maybe, but it's sort of specialised custom design so it's not expensive for what it is.

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