CasioG-Shock G-SHOCK Funk Men's Watch GW-7900-1ER

As a seasoned user of the Casio G-Shock, I purchased this beauty to replace my faithful (but sadly now unreliable) MTG-930DU which lasted over ten years. That model was metal, this one is resin so only time will tell how it will compare in terms of durability.FIRST IMPRESSIONSAs is customary for Casio, the packaging for this watch is amazing. Inside the shiny black carboard box is the now traditional metal tin inside of which your watch nestles, surrounded by dense foam packaging to protect it from damage in transit. Somewhat ironic considering the situations this watch is designed to endure but nice to see nonetheless.Once you remove all of the protective packaging you have a relatively lightweight product which you can almost forget you're wearing. It looks rugged and stands approximately 1.5cm deep from your wrist.Be sure to adjust the strap so that you can insert your pinky finger between the bracelet buckle and your wrist. Too tight and perspiration will accumulate which can cause skin irritations and prematurely weaken the resin of the strap. The watch should be able to slide SLIGHTLY up and down your wrist, something that you'll quickly become used to. If, like me, you have meaty wrists, it won't move too much. About 2 inches of movement is normal. Any more than that and you'll be constantly shaking or pushing the watch back up to your hand!FUNCTION OVERVIEWAs usual, this watch is feature-packed but not ridiculously so. It boasts (in addition to the standard timekeeping mode), World Time (useful for travel abroad where the display will show the time in both your "home" city and your current location), an alarm, a countdown timer, a stopwatch, an illuminated display (we'll come back to this shortly) and a Moon Phase / Tide display. Oh, and it's atomically controlled which means no setting of the time. Ever. Nice!If you're a mariner (note that I avoided using the word "seaman" because I'm well aware that anyone with the mentality of a teenager will giggle inanely at the very mention of it) or a fisherman, this moon and tide display will, I'm sure, be pretty useful. Saying that, Casio themselves recommend that you don't use this watch as a navigation aid. Makes sense, really. But to the average user, the moon and tide display is perhaps a little "gimmicky". As anyone who works with the public will attest, it's always nice to know when it's going to be a full moon because things tend to get "interesting" on such nights but I honestly can't see me using the tide display at all. Unless I have a sudden and unexpected change of career. Hmm. No. I like dry land, thanks.That said, this feature is accommodated in a fairly narrow band across the centre of the display and isn't obtrusive. You'll soon forget that it's there. And the next time someone says, "Hmm, I wonder if it's a full moon tonight?" you'll be able to glance at your watch and say, "No. Tomorrow night." Sure to impress. Not sure it's a great aid to pulling the ladies but it'll certainly have colleagues nodding their heads approvingly.SET-UPAs is traditional, your G-Shock comes with a user guide that is the thickness of a telephone directory (remember them?!) but the footprint of a box of matches. Don't worry, only a relatively small section will be in your native tongue so it won't take you hours to learn how to use it. And it's pretty logically written, too. What you NEED to know first followed by what you might LIKE to know.For me, setup was very, very easy. Being a "Waveceptor", the watch was already accurate in terms of the local time. I just had to change my home-city to LON (for London) to ensure that it would receive the time signal from Bury every night. I also switched the default 12-hour display to 24-hour and ensured that the AEL (Automatic Illumination) feature was switched OFF. I've never truly understood the need for this function. If I want to tell the time in the dark, I can press the light button (which, by default, illuminates the screen for 1.5 seconds, although this is switchable to 3 seconds for reasons I can't quite fathom... how long does it take to read the time from a digital display?!) Anyway, I have no wish to have the display illuminate every time I turn my wrist to the position where I might reasonably be suspected of reading my watch. This usually occurred whenever I was driving and turning left (unless I had the steering wheel in a flat position) and if you're a smoker who holds a cigarette in your right hand, the AEL function will regularly activate as you enjoy a smoke. Not particularly useful.Instructions for setting your home city, switching between 12 and 24 hour modes and ensuring that AEL is switched off are clearly detailed in the instruction manual but, essentially, holding down the top left button from timekeeping mode (the standard display) puts the watch into SET mode. You can cycle through the options using the bottom left button and adjust each setting with the right-hand buttons. Pressing / holding the top left button again will save your settings and return the watch to the timekeeping mode. If you want to switch AEL on or off, hold down the light button (the one on the face of the watch with the "G" logo on it) for three seconds. If it's ON, a mark will appear above AEL on the display. OFF and the mark goes away. Easy, huh?!CAREAs with all G-Shocks bearing the WATER RESIST or WATER RESISTANT logos, this watch is pretty water-resistant. However, there are a few caveats of which you should be aware.As a diver, I can tell you that this watch is NOT suitable for SCUBA or Tethered activities. If you need an air supply (tanked or tethered) to dive, you should NOT be wearing this watch. Yes, it's water resistant to 20 bar but if you need a regulator and BCD to dive, this watch is not for you. Or at least not to be used when diving. It's fine for water sports (including swimming) but don't operate any of the buttons whilst the watch is submerged. Best practice would be to avoid operating the buttons when the watch is wet in general. Only a small amount of water ingress can cause issues.If you HAVE ignored this advice and taken the watch on a dive, it's best practice to leave it somewhere warm and dry (preferably in rice to absorb any released moisture) for twenty-four hours before using it again. Symptoms of water ingress include a corrupted display or the constant activation of the illuminator.In terms of bathing and showering, the watch WOULD be fine were it not for the presence of detergents. Soap, shampoo, shower gel and conditioner all contain chemicals which are capable of compromising the water resistance of the watch. You should, therefore, remove the watch before bathing or showering. Hand washing is not a problem - unless you need to wash your entire forearm, too!To be honest, though? I wore my MTG in the shower AND the bath for years with no ill-effects. At least until the last six months when the display corrupted and I only had to sneeze in the general vicinity of the watch for it to beep and illuminate.I guess what I'm saying is, don't make a REGULAR habit of showering or bathing with your watch on. Try to get into the habit of removing it beforehand but, equally, don't expect it to die should you forget. It's a hardy little chap and will tolerate most abuses.Regular exposure to sunlight (or even extended periods exposed to artificial light) will keep the rechargeable cell topped up so if you have no need to wear the watch at any time, take it off and place it on a secure window-sill or surface near a window to do a spot of "sun bathing" and top up the battery. Of course, if you HAVE left this watch in direct sunlight, be careful putting it back on if it's hot! Duh!And try not to regularly cover the watch with your sleeve. Why WOULD you?! Wear your G-Shock with pride. The bottom line is, the solar panel needs regular exposure to light to charge the battery. Like a teenager or a scientist, extended periods in a darkened room with no exposure to sunlight is not conducive to health.SUMMARYI've worn G-Shock watches for the majority of my working life. They're watches that you'll go back to time and time again. Some of my watches have endured some pretty grisly and testing situations and come out relatively unscathed. They're designed to endure moderately rough handling but I always try to ensure that my watch is protected from situations which are obviously going to test their ruggedness beyond reasonable limits.If you're looking for a rugged, light-weight, functional and practical watch, you've found it. The GW-7900-1ER is a perfect companion.Having literally JUST received it, set-it up and strapped it to my wrist, it's a little early to speak of durability but first impressions would suggest that this little beauty will adorn my wrist for quite some years to come.Oh and there are two variants of this particular model. This is the "black on white" display. I did look at the "inverse" display but felt that it would be difficult to read. To clarify, as the photographs on the Amazon page show, the characters of the display are black and stand-out nicely against the white background of the display. As it should be, in my opinion.The illumination is a pleasant cyan blue and isn't too bright which is great for situations where you'd really rather not give away your position by having your face lit up like a Christmas tree. But I WOULD ensure that the illumination period is set to 1.5 seconds as opposed to the alternative 3 seconds because NOBODY needs to be reading the time for that long and every time that screen lights up, you're using a considerable amount of juice.In short, folks... I can't hesitate to recommend this watch. Sure, you can spend £600+ on the Rangeman or Mudman series but who needs an altimeter?! The more functions, the more that can go wrong. So, for a sub £100 watch, this is a perfect choice.Sure, there are a few caveats to its ruggedness but don't let those put you off. If you forget to remove your watch occasionally when showering (or even diving to a recreational depth) it's unlikely to die on you. It really is a watch that you can strap on to your wrist and forget about. But taking reasonable care to protect it from environments it's not comfortable in is common sense (and a necessary evil in the case of most other watches anyway).I hope this review proves useful to those, like me, who deliberated for some time before making their purchase. My advice? Go for it. You certainly won't regret it and I'm confident that you'll be pleasantly surprised.

This is a fantastic G-Shock watch. I have owned a few G-Shocks over the years and this is by far the best I've had. This has quickly become my everyday watch as it is just practical. It is a little chunkier than other G-Shock bodies but not so that it becomes unwieldy. I had an older model that had a Velcro strap and although the body of the watch was slimmer (marginally, these are G-Shocks and so slimmness is never going to be a feature) the strap raised the thing off of the wrist by quite a bit.This watch runs off of batteries that are solar charged. I live in the UK and got the watch for Christmas and so had what felt like a life time of darkness to contend with. Throughout the winter months it dropped down to medium charge a few times but the performance was never impaired (that I noticed). If I ever felt that it needed a top up I just left it on a windowsill for a little while.This watch also has radio controlled time setting. It is a nice thing to know that your watch will always be extremely accurate without having to update the seconds on it every now and then which I had to do on my other G-Shocks. These were great but over time they did gain or lose seconds. Nothing I ever bothered to get sorted as it was over months but once you notice something like that it can niggle a bit. This watch does not have that problem. As part of it's World Time feature you can set your location to a city near you and it will update via the radio to this time automatically. You do have to set the location yourself or it will correct to your last set location.Another location based feature is the tide table. Set the watch to the next high tide and you will always be able to tell what the sea is doing. I live by the sea and this is a fantastic feature. Looking at the sea and it is obvious to see it the tide is in or out but being able to tell if it going out or coming in is a bit harder so this watch makes it easy to tell at a glance. It covers a fairly broad range of tide positions but a click will tell you the exact time of high tide and it has been fairly accurate over the time I have had the watch.All of the above comes with the total peace of mind that no matter what you do to your watch it will just keep on going. These things are almost indestructible. If you want a G-Shock and you live near the sea then this is the watch for you.