Things aren’t simple anymore in the watches that we wear around our wrists. Innovation in watches and watch design has increased over the last few years as a result of the world of fashion making its way into the industry domain. While some of the more recent style developments include the growing use of gold, diamonds and other expensive stones (remember Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s $4.6 million Louis Moinet watch that he wore to the National Assembly some years back!), new tech features incorporated in some of the new-age watches include cameras, global positioning systems (GPS), MP3 players, navigation and PC links, heart monitors etc. It seems today’s fashion forward man is looking for more than just a watch to tell time. He is looking for a high-tech, high-fashion addition to his wrist wardrobe.
In sync with this trend, Casio has embraced the use of new technology by developing Casio G-Shock Gravity Master GPW-1000. Personally I believe that this watch will give any man a chic new look. The watch offers great features and a strong, functional case design that provides maximum wear in any conditions. The GPW-1000 is claimed to be the world’s first watch capable of receiving both GPS and radio signals, ensuring maximum reliability and the highest possible level of accuracy. It retails for R49,995. Let us find out what this new gadget is all about.
Out of the black box, the new G-Shock Gravity Master GPW-1000 is a design and technology marvel. It’s a big watch for sure, but it has a sophisticated form and finish and diligently captures the essence of the analogue watch. The face is scratch-resistant sapphire crystal and a high strength, durable carbon fibre insert band, and bezel with scratch-resistant DLC coating ensure a high level of toughness. The GPW-1000 comes with Triple G Resist construction to withstand shocks, centrifugal force, and vibrations.
At only 126 grams, weight-wise the GPW-1000 is generally comfortable to wear. But let me add that while the watch is physically beefy on the wrist, it never felt overly obstructive. Even the rubbery watch band doesn’t come in much contact with the skin. Given the size, however, it does take more than a few practice runs to be able to wear it on your wrist and feel comfortable with it. You might drop it a few times…but again, no worries there.
Once around your wrist, know that people will notice the GPW-1000 for sure. This Casio masterpiece captures the utmost feel of toughness to offer features, performance, and design that surpass the imagination of users. It has, what the company claims, to be the world’s first hybrid time keeping system that receives both global positioning system (GPS) signals and radio wave time-calibration signals transmitted from six stations worldwide.
Technically speaking, the GPW-1000 has multi-band 6 atomic radio wave technology to ensure time-keeping accuracy. But that is not all; the watch has a GPS module inside to receive positioning and time data from satellites. This ensures that no matter where you are in the world—dense forest to desert dunes, in marine environments or surrounded by buildings or indoors—your watch will automatically tell the right time, no matter the time zone—and it will be unerringly accurate.
In addition, the GPW-1000 features shadow-dispersing solar cells to efficiently receive enough light for charging and comes with a low-power GPS LSI to ensure efficient supply of power.
As mentioned earlier, the GPW-1000 can receive time-calibration signals by radio wave from any of the six transmission stations worldwide (two in Japan and one each in North America, UK, Germany, and China) and can receive transmissions of position and time data from GPS satellites. The watch references internal global map data in 500-meter resolution grids, to automatically adjust to the local time zone based on
location information and correct for daylight savings.
The hybrid system in the GPW-10000 displays accurate time anywhere in the world with an algorithm that uses location information analysed by GPS and radio signals.
Once activated, you only need a single GPS button push to get the current accurate time, but diving into the rest of the features will probably require the product manual, particularly if you are new to the Casio G-Shock watch ecosystem. In running through the various options and settings, I found the buttons easy to push yet firm enough to limit accidental activation, and the digital crown is well designed and integrated into the larger feature set.
In summary, I would like to say that I was pretty impressed with the GPW-1000. The price might be a bit steep, but this seems to be a very good watch when it comes to design and hardcore functionality. If I may put it rightly, it is more than just a watch to tell time.
** Estimated street price: Rs 49,995
