CASIO Digital, for Men, GW-5000U-1ER

Product Information

Simply, because it is a great digital watch. In terms of time, date, world time, alarm, stopwatch and timer, the upgrade to the "u" version has fixed some of the minor issues of the previous iteration and has everything you really need unless you want to get into fitness or smartwatches. The upgraded world time features make switching between time zones a double button press away and its stealthy appearance keeps it off the radar of luxury watch theives. So, a great travel watch in other words. Technical amendments and errors excepted. The sizes in figures do not correspond to the original sizes. The world-time function was the closer for me and ended my hunt for a dedicated, mechanical world-time watch. I was agonizing over adding yet another watch to my collection that would be single-purpose, and a relatively quirky one at that. The GW-5000U-1JF is a veritable Swiss Army knife. In the week I’ve owned it, I’ve found multiple uses for the stopwatch, timer, and alarm functions as well. And I’ve used the world-time function more often than I thought I would already. I may be at serious risk of a one-watch collection if I don’t start wearing another watch soon.

Home city time and world time display swap in world time mode by pressing the top two buttons (A and B) at the same time A reliable source has a new “Speed Model Series” listed for July 2021 in Japan. Though not all of the details are available, it includes three GW-M5610U models, one GW-5000U, one GW-S5600U, and one G-5600U. world time settings (48 cities), 31 time zones, the additional 2 time zones are for the cities of Fernando de Noronha (-2) and Kathmandu (+5.75)All the upgrades are a positive and may be difficult to resist.Functionally, the 5610u matches it. However, the visceral experience of putting on the 5000u after wearing the 5610 feels like step up in class. The all-metal B5000 has a few extras like Bluetooth connectivity and short reminder message possibilites but that may even be a negative for some. Likewise with its weight. The 5000U is sound and satisfying. Whether I'm sat at my desk, out walking, going to the store, driving, airports, desert, forest, ocean, whatever, it's wonderfully constant. You can get it wet, covered in dirt or sawdust or sand, bang it, drop it, leave it outside on the lawn all night - and it'll just keep on doing what it does flawlessly. And for those who know about watches, it has a fascinating heritage and design ethos. Individualistic. Retro chic. Tough. Bullet-proof reliability. Perfect for freediving without equipment: the watch is water resistant to 20 bar / 200 meters. The meter specification does not refer to a diving depth, but to the air pressure, which was applied as part of the watertightness test. (ISO 2281) So much for the software upgrades. For those not already familiar with the hardware, the standouts are: You see, I like flying under the radar as far as my watches are concerned. I have no need or want to own and show off the flashiest wrist candy available. My flashiest watch is a Mr Jones Watches Nuage, which is only so because it’s immediately apparent that it’s a watch that is not for telling time. That watch is also on my special list of four, at least until I get a chance to get out to Japan and shop for a vintage Seiko to replace it as my go-to “dress” watch. Another watch I already own that’s on the list is my Seiko Alpinist SARB017, my GADA three-hander. See a trend? I do. My core watches have been or are turning out to be relatively affordable, fun, and largely Japanese (though the Nuage employs a Swiss quartz engine). That won’t be the case for the final addition to the four, though that’s a topic for another article.

The rest is the "wetsuit" part composed of upgraded resin/polyurethane compounds that give a sharkskin-like smoothness and comfort to the wearing experience. To top it off style wise is the largely "stealth" monochrome colourway. This watch would not look out of place peeking out of the wetsuit sleeve of a Bond villain’s henchman wielding a spear gun in an underwater chase/fight scene. Hopefully that paints a picture. For me, its great for going out for a few hours but overall the 5000u is better suited as an "all the time" watch. Or, at least as Bob Dylan once sang, “Most of the time”… For the more down to earth, and more true to the original, resin models, the GW-M5610U with its new 3495 module is the first one to offer switchable DD/MM and MM/DD date notations. As a bonus, the DD day abbreviation can be set to six languages, English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Russian. The former model only had English as an option. World-timeThe daily alarm reminds you about recurring events with an acoustic signal at the time you have set. This model has 5 independent alarms for flexible reminders of important appointments. The feature of permanent displaying the home time sacrificed the stopwatch somewhat. It still runs to a maximum of 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds, but the old module offered 1/100 of a second for the full maximum duration of the stopwatch. With the new module, 1/100 of a second is only available for the first hour (59′ 59” 99”’), thereafter the maximum accuracy is one second. For me, the permanent availability of the time in the display is way more usable. Alarms and Timer Whether in Europe, North America and Japan or in the outer reaches of Canada, Central America and China - once the watch has been set to the local time, it receives the relevant signal and shows the correct time wherever you are. In many countries, it also sets itself automatically to summer and winter time. Resin is made of synthetic resin and is the ideal material for bracelets due to its extreme durability and flexibility. For those who want to know exactly: The countdown timer helps to remember special or recurring events by emitting an acoustic signal at the set time. The time can be set every minute and up to 24 hours in advance. This function is especially convenient for daily medication or interval training.

This particular model's display varies in two ways to the other two. It has a negative, STN (Super Twisted Nematic) display. One cool feature of the negative STN display is, that in certain light angles the numerals appear to have a rainbow colouring. Quite lovely. You get a 3 year warranty-certificate for your new timepiece. If there is any problem with the mechanism, this certificate garanties a 100 % protection- meaning we take care of the technical integrity inbetween these 3 years. Adjustable date format (M.DD or DD.M) and adjustable day of week language (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian) Adjustable 1.5 or 3 second afterglow for light (versus 1.5 second non-adjustable afterglow on module 3159) Other features include Tough Solar power, Multi-Band 6 automatic radio time syncing (except for G-5600UE), mineral glass, full auto calendar, 1/100-second stopwatch with split, 1st and 2nd place (1/100-second for first hour, 1-second after first hour), 5 alarms with 1 snooze, adjustable hourly time signal, power saving function, 12-24 hour format, and button tone on/off.Then the new ‘U’ version came out and I bought the GW-5610U discounted to see if the changes made any real difference.

My core watches have been or are turning out to be relatively affordable, fun, and largely Japanese… In the list of 48 cities (plus UTC), three cities have been changed. Miami, Toronto, and Santiago were sacrificed, while Kathmandu, Buenos Aires, and Fernando de Noronha were added. Here the first and last are the most important because they led to the availability of two additional time zones. Katmandu lives at GMT +5 3/4 of an hour, and Fernando de Noronha at GMT -2 hours. Both time zones were not available in the old module and made the total number of different time zones grow to 31 in the new one. The button tones for using the mode button can be turned off. This means that the watch no longer beeps when switching from one function to another. Preset alarm or countdown timers remain active when the button tones are deactivated. Weight wise, it is, unsurprisingly, the heaviest of the bunch at 154gm - over double the weight of 5000u and triple the weight of the 5610u. That puts it firmly into steel diver's watch territory in terms of wrist presence. Some may feel this is a desirable or less desirable thing depending on use case and preference.

The ultimate G-Shock sleeper

The software/functional side on 5610u and 5000u are identical. In fact all 3 watches in this comparison share the 3459 module. Invisible solar cells in the watch convert light into energy and supply all functions. A rechargeable battery provides the necessary capacity for operation in poor light conditions. Yep. Totally. Though, whilst you are technically correct, these sort of changes can double, triple, and quadruple the price of this style of watch. That is, in terms of how Casio typically places things like sapphire, titanium, STN etc in higher models. So, that kinda moves it out of the "classic square" category for me. For athletes and all those who want to know exactly: Elapsed time, split time and end time are measured with an accuracy of hundredths of a second. The measuring capacity of the watch lasts up to 24 hours.