CasioCollection Men's Watch SGW-100

I've be rediscovering my love of Casio watches recently, and this came in to my radar.Lets look at the features for this sub £40 watch:1. 200m Water Resistance2. Electronic Compass3. Temperature Gague4. EL Backlight5. Stopwatch6. Timer7. 5 Alarms8. World TimeSo again, this is a sub £40 watch.Also, Casio has legendary build quality, so the finish is great and indeed the watch looks great. It looks like an expensive "tool" watch.Yes, the compass is not comparable to something with GPS and it takes calibrating, but it's no biggie, I'm not going to steer a boat across the ocean with it. In fact, I have no need for the compass feature, it's just neat tech.Likewise with the thermometer, which is only accurate when it's not on your wrist.The stopwatch is great, you can still see the time whilst you're usinig it and the world time is great if you're travelling.The watch is light and comfortable. It is not a G-Shock, so don't expect it to survive running your car over it, but on the other hand it costs about a 1/3 of a G-Shock with these features.Again, this is a sub £40 watch, and I can only think of one that packs more in for this money...and that's a Casio too.

An excellent watch that does everything it says in the literature. I have yet to try it at any great depth, but I have used it in the sea. The snooze option for the alarms is excellent for me as I am a poor riser in the morning. This saves me from having to set several different alarms as I used to do with my last watch. Stopwatch, lap-times, compass and thermometer all very useful functions for various aquatic and dry-land sports. The world-timer function is handy as I have relatives that live in various different locations around the world. This allows me to know what time of day it is where they are, without having to consult the internet or other sources. I would definitely recommend this watch for the money spent.

Going on a family beach / light activities holiday at the end of summer 2011 I wanted a watch that I wouldn't have to worry about. I also wanted to buy something that wwould bee useful after we got back, being an outdoor and indoor sports enthusiast, something that again I wouldn't have to worrry about but that also had some useful functions.I looked at the Suunto Vector and some of the Casio Protrek range, that all come with a price tag of over £100. I liked the Vector but tried it on in a shop and didn't really like the materials it was constructed from and then ffound out it wasn't waterproof, hence no good for swimming.I came across this SWG-100-1VEF on Amazon at a fraction of the price, and in honesty it seemed to offer a lot at a small price tag so I took a bit of a chance and ordered it.It arrived very promptly andd well packaged.The first thing I noticed unpacking it was that it actually looked even better than it had in the product images on Amazon. In fact when i tried it on for the first time my wife said that she thought it looked better than my much more expensive titanium watch.The size of the watch casee is perfect, not overly large although it is very substantial, with a large mixeed material bezel protecting the the smallish counter-sunk LCD screen. Beecuase the bezel is made of several materials andd tapered it makes the watch case feel smaller than it actually is.The watch itself feels well constructed andd the materials feel very solid, and infact high-quality, with the philips head screws on the top of the bezel addding to this and making it feeel like it could take a lot of punishment.Thee only thing regarding the construction that I didn't expect was the material of the strap. I had imagined it to be rubber whereas it's a hard plastic resin - but thinking back to the last Casio watch I owned as a teenager this too was made of a hard plastic resin. In all honesty the strap is very comfortable, the double crimp in it holdds the watch still on your wrist even during activities and swimmming / diving.The LCD display at first seeemed a little small but the information is displayed so clearly it is easier to read than most other watches I have owned.the default time setting shows digital time (inclduing seconds), day, month and date. It also has a DST mode too.The next screen, which is displayed by touching the mode button, shows a second time zone of your choice - which has proved extremely useful to me when I have repeatedly been abroad on busniness - not only does this show the time in your current zone but it similtaneously displays (at thee top of the screen in a smaller font size) the time in your home zone (GMT in my case) so that if you are making calls etc. back home you always know what time they're on.Thee next mode is the stop watch - does what you'd expect and features split times. I found that trail running even in wet conditions the large grippy buttons used to start/stop the timer are always reliable.The next mode is a countdown timer, again I have made good use of this multi-tasking etc. and is again very simple to use and set up.The next mode is the multiple alarm section which has 5 alarms, a snooze function and an 'on-the-hour' beep function. Once again being abroad on different time zones I have made good use of all 5 different alarms at one - though it is worth noting that the alarms are set from your default home time, not your second time zone - so you need to do some calculations if you're using them in a different time zone. The alarms are just the correct volumee to wake me if the watch is being worn or on a bedside table without putting you in to a panic. I have not discovered how to use the snooze function though, since it's not important to me.Another press of the mode button takes you back to the normal time display screeen. It's also worth noting that every time you press the mode button the watch beeps, however when returning to the normal home time screen the beep is higher pitched - this is acually really useful since you don't always need to be viewing the watch when you want to return to time mode, for instance in the middle of an activity.Thee last function of the watch is obvioulsy the compass and thermometer - accessed from the home screen using a dedicated button. One press andd you're into similtaneous compass and temp mode. When you first get the watch you have to calibrate the compass - this involvees followwing on screen prompts and rootating the watch 360 degrees a few times whilst holding it horizontally flat. Easily and quickly done. The compasss seems relatively accurate, though I would not rely on it to navigate - it is very useful in getting loose bearings - i.e. if you know roughly wheere you are headed with way points / landmarks, or in an unknown city where a compass bearing is going to help you to get to a landmark / destination you roughly know is in a given direction.Thee thermometer of the other hand is limited in use when the watch is worn - it usually reads around the low 30 degrees cent which is inkeeping with the surface skin temperature of your arm itself. In order to get a decent environmental temp reading you really neeed to takee the watch off your wrist and leave it ffor a while to settlee down. This howwever I would say is useful if you're camping for example - you can takee thee watch off leaving beeside your sleeping bag and check the temperature before you get out in to the cold to know what you're dealing with.The only thing that surprised me about the compasss mode when I first got the watch (in fact I thought it was faulty) was that I expected the mode to permananetly display compasss bearing and temp as long as the mode was activated. It doesn't. When the mode is entered it displays both for around 7 secs and then goees blank. Non of the literature really explains this, but once I realised this was the way it worked (probably to help reserve battery life) actually using the compass is still easy - which gives you a bearing in degrees and a small cursor indicating north. Incidentally the time is still displayed in this mode in the small ffont at the top of the screen.The watch also feature an eleectro-luminscent back light, which again is extremely useful making it easy to view the screen in low level light to pitch black, although it does only stay light for 1.5-2 secs so you need to be quick to read it!All of the adjustments and settings and menu's are a doddle to use and I wouldn't expect you need anything more than a 5 min scan of the manual in order to understand exactly how to use the watch (and never need to refer to the manual again).In summaryI would give the watch 4/5 as it's great but if you pay hundreds of pounds there are better units out there that do more. If it was value for money I would give it 5 stars without hesitation. My ony single criticism of the watch itself is that it wwould benefit from a rotating bezel for compass bearings.Thee watch though really is magnificent - for less than £50 thee design, quality, function, style, usefulness and ease of use I don't believe can be beaten.In fact in all these areas I would say to some extent it is better than some of it's much more expensive competiion, offered either by Suunto or Casio (in the form of ProTrek) themselves. Go ahead and buy one - you will not regret it!!!P.S. Apologiees for all the typo's - using a floating key stlye keyboard that makes spelling very diffficult!

I had a nice surprise when I opened the package containing the watch this morning. It was a bit bigger than I thought it would be, but not bulky by any means, In fact, it fits all the-info on the watch face, without making it too busy to read. The watch is comfortable on your wrist, and so much so, that you don't know you have it on, Until you need the time that is. I haven't used the compass yet, and may be never will, If you need one of those, then buy one separate from the watch. As for the water resist, Well, it sure holds up to that. I haven't been down 200 mtr's with it, but I have swam in it, and yes, it comes up trumps.Don't expect to find the label G-Shock on it, as although it's a Casio, I would say it's an older model, That's just my guess though. But old-or-not. It sure is the best watch I have had on my wrist.It took me days to look through all the options that Amazon throw at you for this kind of thing, but I'm so glad I found this one. As for it lasting for years to come, Well, going by the other Casio watches I've had, I am holding out lots of hope for it.I hope this helps you to feel safe buying this watch. You will not be un-happy with it...