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good watch for a low price,
I purchased this watch for work and exercising and after using it for a day I’d say it performs admirably; one certainly cannot complain about the price. Shipping wasn’t particularly cheap, but Fed Ex 2 day never is. Stopwatch and timer functions work perfectly, but appear limited to 23:59:59 at max. The daylight savings toggle is handy, and Casio allows a one or two button combination to rapidly set the analog dial in increments of about twenty seconds. The alarm is moderately loud, on par with every other Casio I’ve used. 30 cities to choose from for world time is a nice bonus if you care.
Some annoyances:
The ‘illuminator’ light ring is VERY poorly designed and appears to consist of two yellow LEDs embedded in a clear plastic ring under the outside edge of the ‘crystal’. When in use, analog time is just visible but the recessed LCD screen is totally unusable. If low-light or nighttime use of the stopwatch or timer is important to you buy something with an electroluminescent face instead of this.
The 30 entry data bank function is probably very handy in a pinch, but entering letters and numbers by using the two watch buttons is incredibly slow. Use your cell phone or a little black book.
The numbers on the outside of the dial are redundant with the ticks on the inside of the dial. One or the other would be preferable for aesthetic reasons.
The battery will probably not last nearly ten years if the analog time is adjusted often or the ‘illuminator’ is used too often.
I prefer leather bands over resin, but that can always be swapped out at a drug store or mega mart.
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|Great watch, great price,
I’ve long been a fan of casio watches – they’re the prefect mix of affordability, quality and durability. I bought this watch to replace my prior casio which after about 7 years had a scratched up crystal and two of the buttons were becoming too difficult to push (one of which was the light).
This watch was very easy to program, and had all the features I wanted. The digital numbers are easy to read, multiple alarms, world times for different cities are a nice feature (we have friends in Europe, and it’s always nice to know the time over there prior to calling).
As other reviewers have noted, you cannot see the digital output when you use the light in the dark…you can see the digital numbers on my timex explorer, but you still can’t do anything with the digital programming while you’re holding down the light button on the timex…so I really don’t see this as a problem with the casio. All I ever want to do at night it simply check the time, and the light allows you to read the hands perfectly.
One note on the “notes/memo” function on this watch…I think it’s a vestige from the days before cell phones and PDAs. I can’t imagine taking the time to program in someone’s phone number or a note about something…much easier to do that on my Blackberry. Still, it’s there if anyone wants to use it.
As I mentioned earlier in this review, I have a timex expedition which is a digital/analog watch that I never use. If you’re curious why I don’t use it, it’s because the thing is heavy and the ticking sound is too loud and keeps me from wearing the watch at night. I actually use the watch alarm as my daily alarm – it’s loud enough to wake me up while not disturbing my wife. However, with the timex, neither of us can get to sleep with that loud, annoying, ticking sound.
The casio is silent, and it’s light – almost like not wearing a watch at all. Both of these are huge pluses in my opinion.
Finally, I think this is a nice looking watch. Not gaudy – one I can wear to work or as a casual watch.
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|Watch review,
It’s a good product at a good price, but I don’t know why it was billed as a thermometer watch when it has no thermometer. A Casio watch I ealier owned actually had a thermometer. Also the count-down timer has no alarm, which seems unusual. But these problems are not so substantial that I want to return the watch.
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|A lot of features, displayed well,
I think this is the best all-digital watch out there right now. It has no unusual features, but it’s the least expensive watch to offer a countdown timer, which is what I wanted most, and in a small package. The Casio W71 is the other option. All the rest either lack the timer, have analog hands, or are much larger and heavier. The timex “classic” model, despite some product descriptions, does not have a countdown timer.
What puts this one ahead is the size of the display, the alarms, and the extra two (fwd/rev) buttons. The size allows for larger numbers in the main time display, but the sub-displays are most useful in the other modes. In timer, stopwatch, 2nd-time-zone, and alarm-set modes the time of day is still displayed in the lower left. No need to switch out of stopwatch or timer to check the time. The fwd/rev buttons make setting any anything much easier as you can always adjust both ways, and never need to guess which buttons change the number and which move to the next field.
The alarm functions are much better than the usual. There are five, and the first one can be set to repeat up to 10 times at 5 min intervals – much more likely to wake you up than the normal mode. Like all watches, the alarm does not sound very long, but this way it will try again every 5 minutes. They call this “Snooze Alarm Mode” since you can silence the alarm early each time by pressing any button. To stop it completely you need to go to alarm mode and press one button to disable alarm 1 (press twice more to enable it for the next day). All five alarms can optionally use the month and/or day to have an alarm sound every day on a particular month, or on one particular day each month. You can’t set it to “first tuesday”, or only on weekdays/weekends. Using all five, of course, you could have a weekdays-only alarm. There is a hourly signal available, and if it’s set then SIG appears in tiny letters at the lower right.
The countdown timer is a simple one. You set a time, it counts, it alarms, that’s it. Some (always larger) sports watches offer repeating timers (as does the Casio W71 mentioned above), or even multiple timers that can run in sequence for interval timing. The only other small one I know of is a women’s watch, the LA670, and is unique in having very easily set common times (5,10, etc.), but may lack an adjustable timer.
The databank feature, if you have a cellular phone, is more a throwback to the ’90s than anything useful. I assume it’s the main reason for otherwise useful features though: all the extra digits on the display, the big 3-letter day-of-week indicator, and the fwd/back buttons. It can hold 8 alphanumeric characters (they scroll) and 15 numbers per record. Maybe you can think of a use for it. Special characters are available if you set the watch to other languages (and stay even if you change the language setting). Holding FWD at the main screen shows the last-viewed databank entry.
The international language feature is unusual, great if you want it, and doesn’t get in the way if you don’t. Also useful for international use could be that the second time zone only shares the seconds with the main time. Most watches have it share the minutes as well. This way you can easily set it to be a half-hour off, which is needed for some oddball time zones. Holding REV shows the 2nd time zone from the main screen.
The cons are: DST, light, and band.
First, let me address the 12/24/DST issue. Yes, the lower right button changes 12/24 if pressed briefly. If your wrist is such that you’re accidentally hitting that button (mine, fortunately, is not) then that could be disconcerting but you can always press it again, or just read the time in the other format. It is possible that you might accidentally hold the button down for a second, which would toggle the DST setting and thus display a time that’s an hour off. I’m not sure why they made DST so easily accessible and consider that a design flaw. You may not like this watch if that happens to you, but I want to make clear, to correct an error in another review, that the watch DOES INDICATE DST STATUS. It’s a small “DST” next to the day-of-week display. Yes, it’s small, but if you know it’s there it’s easy to see whether it is lit. (Reading the the SNZ, SIG, or DST as letters takes squinting or 20/10 vision, but it’s not hard to see whether the indicators are on or off).
The backlight is a green LED, which is better than the old incandescent ones, but not as nice as the evenly lit blue electroluminescent (EL) backlights on most other watches. Still, it does the job. Not sure if it uses less power than EL, but Casio claims you’ll get the 10-year battery life (a CR2025) if you use it once a day, and half that if you use it 15 times a day. It’ll probably outlast the watch’s case, as the crystal is plastic (though you can polish out scratches…
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|DB36 Outclassed by the old DB31,
SEE UPDATE 10-27-10 BELOW.
I bought this watch to replace my aging but fully functional Casio DB31 ( I have also owned a much older DB2000) because the case broke where the watch band pins connect. I have lived with the DB36 now long enough to say that it is no improvement over the older DB31 and the DB31 outclasses the DB36 in many ways.
Pro:
The DB36-1AV keeps good time so far. The bright LED back-light is excellent. Most functions are equivalent to the DB31 and work well. The long battery life remains to be proven. Press of the “Reverse” button displays the Dual Time setting. Press of the “Forward” button displays the last telememo viewed.
Con:
The display functionality of the DB-36 is grossly inferior to my old DB-31. The large font on the first (top) line (day of the week, name of telememo, and other headings) is so big it allows only 3 characters at a time to be displayed. In the database function, any remaining characters of the 8 allowed must scroll by to view. The second line that typically displays the time of day or the beginning of the telephone number in the database also has a large font except for the first character that is small and the last two characters that are medium size. This is fine for the time of day but for a telephone number it presents a strange combination of sizes that means it is useful only for the area code. Then the remaining part of the telephone number is relegated to the third line that uses a miniature tiny type font and is difficult to read unless you are under age 40. (As I write this, the DB36 just reset itself to factory defaults wiping out all of the 21 telephone numbers that I put in.)
Followup added 10 months later: The DB36 just reset itself again for no apparent reason. Lost all of the info in the telememo database, so if the reason for buying this watch is the telememo feature, you may want to keep on looking!
UPDATE 10-27-10
The DB36 reset itself again and I decided to return it to Casio for warranty repair or replacement. Just got their “estimate” by return email yesterday and they want a total of $17.52 to replace the item still under warranty! I told them NO DEAL! Keep the darn thing! Based on unit performance and Casio warranty service I cannot recommend this product. Are you listening Casio?
Other thoughts:
The telememo database feature is the primary (and perhaps only) reason for purchasing this watch but the display font sizes largely defeat this purpose. The display fonts are a strange mixture of too-large and too-small. The selection of font sizes by Casio for the DB36 represents a step backwards from the DB31. The older DB31 will show 6 characters in the first line, 10 characters in the second line, and 6 characters in the third line. This is compared to the newer DB36 that shows 3 characters, 7 characters, and 8 characters respectively. These are important differences where it counts.
This means that you must wait for the display to scroll to see the entire name in the telememo and you cannot assign a name to any of the five alarm settings like you can with the DB31. You must remember what number the alarm means.
Conclusion: Casio laid an egg with this one. You would have to be legally blind to need the large font in the first line but then you could not read the third. Bring back the DB31 but with an LED light!
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|Great little watch,
I just got my Casio watch today. The manual was fairly thick which was mostly translations in a lot of languages. I decided to forgo the manual and see if I could figure out how to set the watch without it. With little effort, I was easily able to figure everything out and set all the functions without any difficulty. The watch has all of it’s setting functions labeled on the watch itself. They are named under the glass crystal or impressed in the watch itself or it’s buttons. This makes setting this watch really easy. Buttons even included backward and forward buttons which made it easy to go back if you over-shot the date or time going forward. The watch is small compared to my old watch (a G-Shock which is a good watch but now needs a battery after maybe 5 years). I like the small profile and design of this watch a lot. It’s water resistant to a depth of 50 feet and has an LED back light. It’s an inexpensive watch but with a 10 year battery, I’ll probably loose it before I ever wear out the battery.
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