Ok, so it's been about a year since my initial review of the Casio GWM500-A1. I figured it was time to give the watch a final review. Packaging: Even after a little over a year with this watch, I've still held on to the packaging. The watch comes inside a little cardboard box with all the manuals and stuff, and it is placed on a plastic watch stand. The cardboard is pretty thin, but let's be honest here, you could probably burn the box and the watch would still be fine. These G-Shock watches are tough, and you could chuck this thing across a field, and it would be absolutely fine. Initial Setup: Yep, I still remember this too. The 500A-1 was my first Atomic Radio Watch, as well as my first Solar Watch, so needless to say it left a lasting impression. Immediately after taking the watch out of the box, I noticed the time was incorrect. The interesting thing about this watch, is it I'd probably been in sleep or low power mode for a very long time. Since these watches were set at the factory, noting the fact the watch was very off time, means it hadn't received a calibration signal in a while. Being knocked around and shipping likely woke the watch back up, but being inside a metal shipping truck wasn't the best for the calibration signal. After I open the box, I also noticed the watch was at its medium power level, which was not surprising. So I got out of lawn chair, grabbed my phone, and sat out in the yard for about an hour. Not only did the watch receive the calibration signal during the day, (which was interesting because the calibration signal in the US doesn't propagate very well in the day, hence why the watch receives it at night) but it also brought the charge level up to the high level. Ever since that day, the watch has only been inaccurate one other time. I don't exactly remember the circumstances, but it failed to receive the DST change in the calibration signal at one point. No problem, popped the watch into manual receive, and 5 minutes later my watch was back to being the most accurate timepiece in the house. Features: Multi-Band 6 (Atomic Timekeeping) Tough Solar (Solar Battery Recharge) 20BAR Water Resist (200 Meters) Electroluminescent Backlight w/ Afterglow Stopwatch with pause and lap functions & 24hr timer World Time with 48 different Countries 4 Selectable recurring alarms and hourly chime Legendary G-Shock durability Well... This might take a while. First, I figured I'd start with arguably the best feature of this watch, the radio controlled atomic timekeeping. The way this process works is simple. Every night at 12:00, the watch goes into Auto receive mode. (Assuming you've not disabled this feature, it's enabled by default) Assuming it's on your wrist while you sleep or facing a window in the direction of your nearest atomic time station, the watch will try and synchronize it's time with the data encoded in the radio transmission. The strength is conveniently measured with an L1, L2, or L3. The watch can decode up to an L2, but it could take longer to set the time. If the watch has an L3 signal with no interruptions, it can synchronize in around 4 minutes. I found, that in northeastern Ohio I do not need to take the watch off to synchronize the time. In fact, I think wearing the watch at night actually helps the signal. The watch usually synchronizes at 12:04pm every night, unless I've got my arm bent a weird way while I'm sleeping. You will know this process was successful the following day if the watch has a small satellite dish symbol in the top right of the screen. The watch displays this symbol when it has synchronized with atomic time in the last 24 hours. You can also short press the forward button, and it will show you the date and time it last received the calibration signal. You can also long press this button to enable receive manually. If you long press this button, the watch will beep and you will see the current time with a flashing colon, and a small "RC" down on the bottom of the display. Then, if the signal is strong enough you will see the signal strength in a couple of seconds. Next is the other very useful feature of this watch, the Tough Solar, solar battery recharge. This is one of those "does what it says on the tin" sort of things. The internal black bezel is actually a form of solar panel, and it recharges the internal battery of the watch whenever is exposed to sunlight. It will also recharge inside. But when exposed to sunlight through a window, it will charge slower because the glass of the window filters out some of the light. It will also recharge with indoor lighting, but again much slower than if you were outside. To quote the manual "To recover from one EL function, the watch must be exposed to 5 minutes of sunlight outdoors, or 8 hours of indoor fluorescent lighting" I'm not outside all the time, but in the few hours I spend outside a day, my watch has never gone down to the medium charge level. Keeping in mind however, I don't illuminate the display all that much. And then of course there's the water resistance. This watch has a, an absolutely ridiculous water resistance rating of 200 meters!! Unless you're going scuba diving, I don't think you'll have to worry about damaging the internals of this watch. However, I would not wear this watch when showering. It might be beneficial to occasionally clean the watch if you wear it very regularly, but soap and detergent may damage the rubber seal inside the watch. Casio does not say anything about this to my knowledge, but I have had watches that do warn about wearing them in the shower. I get my watch wet very regularly, but it's just a garden hose. I would also not recommend pushing any of the buttons if the watch is submerged in water. Probably not an issue, but I personally do not do it. Next I'll talk about the electroluminescent backlight. A fairly standard backlight for a G-Shock, but it works well enough. My dad has had watches that have that glow powder coating the face inside. This allows the watch to glow all night after being exposed to sunlight all day. I believe this watch works a similar way, but to lliuminate the back light you need to use energy from the battery. In this case, the battery is somewhat small, so repeated illumination can drain the battery somewhat quickly. I have not tried this, but don't go pressing the elimination button 30 or 40 times in a row unless you want your watch battery to die. Next I'll talk about the stopwatch. What can I say, it's a decent little stopwatch for the occasional times I'm bored or actually need it for something. I don't use it a lot, but it's always nice to have it if I need it. It's got all the usual stopwatch stuff. The timer on the other hand, is a large step up from my last, rather basic Casio watch. My old Casio watch only allowed me to add 5 minutes increments to a timer. This watch allows me to make a fully custom timer, with a maximum length of 24 hours. Very handy for cooking stuff, I don't use it regularly, but it's very nice to have. The next thing I'll mention is the world time function. This is probably handy for somebody who travels a lot, but seeing as I don't, I don't use it hardly at all. It is a neat concept however. The watch store is all the UTC shifts for each different country, and can show you the exact time in up to 48 of them. (In their local timezone) It will also show you UTC time as well, which is handy for some people. And then of course, there's the alarms. This one is a bit of a weak aspect of the watch. The alarms work well enough, and you can even set four of them to go off at different times in a day, you can also set them to repeat daily or just go off once and require you to manually restart them. There's a snooze function to, but unfortunately they are fairly quiet. Probably the only downside to this watch, is I wouldn't rely on it waking you up from a dead sleep, unless you're a light sleeper. And finally, there's Casio'
