Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131 in Watches
• Brand: Casio
• Model: G300-3AV
• Dimensions: .30 pounds
• Band material: Resin
• Case material: resin-stainless-steel
• Clasp type: fold-over-clasp-with-double-push-button-safety
• Dial color: black
• Dial window material: Mineral
• Movement type: Quartz
• Water-resistant to 660 feet

Features

• Quartz movement
• Protective Mineral crystal protects watch from scratches
• Case diameter: 43.7 mm
• Resin-stainless-steel case; Black dial
• Water-resistant to 660 feet (200 M)

Amazon.com Product Description
This analog/digital Casio G-Shock Street Rider men's digital sport watch (model G300-3AV) is a great companion for jogging and biking through urban terrain. Large and in charge 43mm case, this shock resistant watch will withstand virtually any punishment you can mete out. It will also stand up to the rigors of recreational scuba diving, with water resistance to 200 meters (660 feet). It includes a 1/100-second stopwatch with a 60-minute measuring capacity and elapsed time, split time, and 1st/2nd place time modes as well as a 24-hour countdown timer.

This watch has a round, durable black resin case that's accented by a silver top ring, black dial (with luminous hands), and a stylish black resin strap. It offers such timekeeping functions as 12/24-hour formats, year/month/date/day display (with an autocalendar to the year 2099), daylight savings time on/off, and world time from 29 time zones/27 cities (with city code display). It has four independent daily alarms (with one snooze alarm) and an optional hourly time signal. Other features include a scratch-resistant mineral crystal, AfterGlow LED electro-luminescent backlight, and battery life of up to 3 years.

Development of the Timepiece Business
With the launch of its first watch in November 1974, Casio entered the wristwatch market at a time when the watch industry had just discovered digital technology. As a company with cutting-edge electronic technology developed for pocket calculators, Casio entered this field confident that it could develop timepieces that would lead the market.

In developing its own wristwatches Casio began with the basic question, "What is a wristwatch?" Rather than simply making a digital version of the conventional mechanical watch, we thought that the ideal wristwatch should be something that shows all facets of time in a consistent way. Based on this, Casio was able to create a watch that displayed the precise time including the second, minute, hour, day, and month — not to mention a.m. or p.m., and the day of the week. It was the first watch in the world with a digital automatic calendar function that eliminated the need to reset the calendar due the variation in month length. Rather than using a conventional watch face and hands, a digital liquid crystal display was adopted to better show all the information. This culminated in the 1974 launch of the CASIOTRON, the world’s first digital watch with automatic calendar. The CASIOTRON won acclaim as a groundbreaking product that represented a complete departure from the conventional wristwatch.

Casio transformed the concept of the watch — from a mere timepiece to an information device for the wrist — and undertook product planning based on this innovative idea. We developed not only time functions such as global time zone watches, but also other radical new functions using Casio’s own digital technology, including calculator and dictionary functions, as well as a phonebook feature based on memory technology, and even a thermometer function using a built-in sensor. The memory-function watches became our DATA BANK product series, while the sensor watches developed into two unique Casio product lines of today: the Pathfinder series displaying altitude, atmospheric pressure, and compass readings.

In 1983, Casio launched the shock-resistant G-SHOCK watch. This product shattered the notion that a watch is a fragile piece of jewelry that needs to be handled with care, and was the result of Casio engineers taking on the challenge of creating the world’s toughest watch. Using a triple-protection design for the parts, module, and case, the G-SHOCK offered a radical new type of watch that was unaffected by strong impacts or shaking. Its practicality was immediately recognized, and its unique look, which embodied its functionality, became wildly popular, resulting in explosive sales in the early 1990s. The G-SHOCK soon adopted various new sensors, solar-powered radio-controlled technology (described below), and new materials for even better durability. By always employing the latest technology, and continuing to transcend conventional thinking about the watch, the G-SHOCK brand has become Casio’s flagship timepiece product.

Today, Casio is focusing its efforts on solar-powered radio-controlled watches: the built-in solar battery eliminates the nuisance of replacing batteries, and the radio-controlled function means users never have to reset the time. In particular, the radio-controlled function represents a revolution in time-keeping technology similar to the impact created when mechanical watches gave way to quartz technology. Through the further development of high radio-wave sensitivity, miniaturization, and improved energy efficiency, Casio continues to produce a whole range of radio-controlled models.

Customer Reviews

Excellent everyday watch!
I really enjoy this watch and I agree with all of the pro's of the other reviewers. It's well built, solid, and wears well everyday. I'm usually pretty abusive with my watches (drops, scrapes, salt water, sweat, and the gym) and I have intentionally punished this watch to see if it lives up to all the hype. So far, no scratches on the band or mineral face. With some soap and water, this thing cleans up quickly and looks new again.

Although, I don't know about the negative review about the LCD being dim. I haven't had a problem thus far and if using the backlight, the LCD is visible in all lighting conditions (pitch black or blindingly bright).

And an additional plus, my girlfriend loves the fact that it has a very smooth surface and well rounded edges. She used to complain about how my watch band would scratch her when we held hands and such, so this is something to consider if you have the same problem. Not a complaint yet!

Love this watch, love the styling, and would buy it again if I needed to.

Light, rugged and inexpensive
I have another GShock watch at home - all digital - and it's held up very well (even the band) throughout its past 5 years of wear. I wish I could say the same about my Timex Ironman watch (see my other reviews to read about it). The Ironman's band split at the buckle hole I use daily. Timex bands tend to specifically fit only certain Timex watches - they're not interchangeable and they're difficult to find replacements for. This GShock represents my new "durable watch" choice after a lot of online browsing and research.

The Pro's:

This new one is from Casio GShock's "Street Rider" series. To drive home the point (no pun intended), the band has a way-cool tire tread appearance to it. Overall, I'm happy with the watch. It's light-weight and doesn't look bad on my smallish wrist. I can't tell you how well it actually keeps time but my experience with Casio watches has been very good with that respect. There's no stem to pull out and turn to adjust the analog hands - you do that with the buttons via a special LCD menu mode. The really neat part of this is the minute hand only "ticks" every 20 seconds and does so in perfect unison with the LCD's seconds display. So, when the LCD time says it's 1:00:00 exactly, you can be certain the minute hand will always be directly on the analog minute marker. The LCD does have a backlight which causes all 3 LCD areas of the face to glow a bright turquoise. The hands have a luminous glow of their own but this fades like all glow-in-the-dark materials, requiring exposure to an external light source to charge up the glow again. The face is a very dark green which makes the hands stand out nicely. The crystal is a genuine mineral crystal (not cheap plastic or even mere glass) which is very durable and typically will not scratch even under rigorous treatment.

The Con's:

This watch has a negative LCD display (white numbers on a black background). I deliberately picked this one over an almost identical model sporting the typical black-on-white LCD display because the negative display was more visually striking. Unfortunately, a negative LCD tends to reduce the legibility of the digits unless you're almost pointing the watch directly at your face with the right amount of light bouncing off it. Of course, you could use the backlight in especially dark circumstances. The analog hands will sometimes cover the digits, again reducing legibility of the LCD. The band is very long - good for a large wrist but not for mine. On the plus side though, it was very easy to snip off the tail end of the band so adjustments were a non-issue.

Summary:

For under $80 this watch offers a slew of features (a lot of them, audible). It's a GShock so you know it'll take a lot of punishment and outlast anything else strapped to your wrist. I wouldn't consider it a dress watch but I feel comfortable wearing it daily, on the job. It's light on the wrist and not exceptionally bulky (despite its appearance). The two-toned brushed-steel-and-black case looks great with the tire tread band. The instruction manual's "Care of the watch" section actually mentions how it's okay to use this watch while scuba-diving or using a chainsaw. In fact, their whole "care" section seems to be a description of what you wouldn't want to do wearing a normal watch.

Worked for me in Baghdad, Kalsu, Babil, and Hillah!
bought it form Amazon through USPS in February of 2006 from Baghdad, Iraq. Wore it the whole year in Baghdad as well as in compbat operations in Babil Province. Excellent performance. Only problem was that my Iraqi counterparts always wanted to trade their watch for mine....