This is a very high functioning watch for the price. It's not glamorous, except in a retro sense, but it's doubtful anyone would bother stealing it, either. It is true that the alarm beep can be a little hard to hear in a noisy environment, or if you're asleep with it on your wrist and your arm is under a bunch of blankets. Otherwise, while not super loud, you should be able to hear it. For me, if it's something really important, I will set multiple alarms (especially alarm #1 which has the snooze function) and the countdown timer so that it keeps beeping at me periodically. I've had the watch for four months on the original battery. So far so good, and I use the alarms, countdown timer and hourly chime every day. Having 5 alarms, instead of one, is a great convenience so you can choose which ones to activate, rather than constantly changing the alarm time. The light is a little green light from the bottom left corner. It provides ample light to see the time in the dark. It's not fancy like indiglo, etc. But it works. It only remains lit for about 1.5 seconds. Even if you keep the light button pressed it will turn off. I assume that is to save battery and to prevent you from trying to use it as a micro flashlight. One quirk with the light which annoys me is that the light turns off when you press any other button. This makes it a little hard to set an alarm in the dark, for example. Instead, you have to turn on the light and then count your button presses and then turn the light back on to verify. It's not a really big deal, but it's annoying. When pressing the mode button the watch puts out a little beep. The pitch of the beep is higher when it returns to the primary time screen. I find this to be useful when I want to make sure that it is not in any of the other screens so that I don't accidentally make changes to things like the alarms or countdown timer and I either don't want to look down at my wrist... or when it's dark and pressing any button would turn off the light (as mentioned above). I don't foresee any problems with the band, although I haven't had it long enough to really say. I wear it a lot and am not exactly gentle with it. No band problems or screen scratches yet. I do like that it is thinner than most other similar watches. ----- Edit: I was wrong about the light turning off when you press any other button. It only turns off by button press by way of the "mode" (bottom left) button. Owned now for just over 10 months. No sign of battery running low. I do still marvel somewhat that I have not managed to scratch the face, yet. I have banged it against stuff pretty hard while working, etc. Of course, now that I've jinxed it, I will probably drop a bit of hamburger bun on it at the "glass" will shatter. Note to self, don't eat any hamburgers today. ----- Update: Addressing the question about the countdown timer, it does have an auto-repeat ("A.RPT" on the screen) which will cause the countdown time to reset upon reaching zero and begin counting down another interval of the same duration. Great function. So you can have it beep at you every ten minutes, for example. Useful for interval training, perhaps. I set it to 28 minutes to prompt me to move on to the next task instead of spending all day editing my reviews on Amazon. Alas, after 13 months of ownership with near daily wear (and often wearing to bed, but never it the shower) part of the case cracked where the band pins go in. I don't really know how it happened. I don't remember hitting the watch on anything, I just looked down and noticed it. At first I thought it was the band failing, but the band is actually still in great condition. I was able to carefully apply superglue and it seems to be holding just fine now after a few weeks. You read about this happening to Casio watches every now and then, so I suppose it is just par for the course. I was able to fix it easily, but the price of the watch also has not changed since I bought it. Replacing it would be cheap and certainly something I would consider if I wasn't able to repair it. Original battery still works. Still no scratches on the face. ----- Update 2 (2/13/19) I've had this watch for 5 years, 2 months and 2 days. I wear it almost daily. It has held up nicely. I am going to guess that what I am experiencing is the first signs of the battery starting to get low. When using the countdown timer, it does not always beep when it reaches zero. I thought it beeped the first time when I used it today, but not subsequent sequential timers (set to 4 minutes, making waffles). The regular alarm still beeps, the hourly chime still beeps, the buttons still beep when you press them, the light still comes on, it still keeps reasonably accurate time (actually seems to be running a little fast, like 2 minutes gain since I last adjusted, which was probably at DST "fall back"). Upon reaching zero the countdown timer holds on 00:00 for a couple of seconds, and then resets to the pre-set interval. IIRC, it would hold on zeroes while beeping. So, it's as if it is trying. All of the other beeping seems to be the same volume as before. Ok, well, as I was making waffles while writing this. When reaching zero for the last waffle it beeped like it should. So, all of the functionality is there, which is what makes me think it is battery. I know they advertise it as a 10 year battery, but I don't know if they meant the original battery, or a brand new battery? I also don't have any way of knowing how long the watch Sat on the shelf before I received it. The manual also mentions that expected battery life is dependent on certain usage criteria regarding alarms and light usage. I think my usage has exceeded those specs. In all, 5 years for a "$1" battery is great. MAYBE it just needs to be "rebooted," i.e. take out the battery and put it back in. I've never done that, and you know how comouter things are after they've been running for a while. Sometimes they just need a fresh start. I've seen some reviews mention that it is too small. Yeah, that's the idea. Sometimes you don't want a big ol' medallion on your wrist. Casio makes other models that accomplish that. I have also still not managed to scratch the "glass." I've even eaten planty of hamburgers while wearing it (see above). In fact,specifically for this update, I just dropped a freshly made waffle directly onto the glass from a height of about 12". I was nervous, but it came out unscathed. The watch was also unharmed.
