I’ve always appreciated the romance of owning and wearing a mechanical watch. In fact, I’ve always dismissed the idea of treating a digital timepiece as an every-day companion. However, after setting my eyes on this new release by Casio, I’ve shifted my belief and never looked back. Let’s look at how the fascinating “CasiOak” changed my opinion on battery-powered watches.
Introduction – The buying process
This isn’t my first GA-2100. I had the chance to purchase the black version – GA2100-1A1 second-hand at an irresistible price. But when I wore it on my smaller wrist, it just didn’t seem to fit too well. The entire package felt a little to dark being matte-black all around. So I sold it for a small profit, and that’s the thing with this series from Casio. You have a high demand from consumers without an instant supply to meet it, so sometimes, buyers are tempted to just pay more instead of waiting it out.
But I knew that this was this series from G-Shock isn’t going to be discontinued anytime soon, so I left my email on G-Shock Singapore’s website with the “Notify me when available” button below.
I didn’t manage to get the watch on the first try. Each time I missed the email notification by few minutes or hours I was again greeted with the “out of stock”. That happened to me roughly four times before I managed to order it in time.
The order was delivered in about 5 days and I was pleasantly surprised with the larger-than-it-should parcel. While I didn’t get a free gift, I did get a shopping bag as I would if I had purchase this from the retail store. This is something whereby G-shock definitely didn’t have to do, but did it anyways and it made me not even remotely feel like I’m missing anything from shopping online during the pandemic.
Features
On the outside
While the elephant in the room is surely the transparent features, there are some nuances differentiating this from the series.
This one from the Transparent series falls just between the 1A1DR and the 1ADR. It has much more legibility than the former and appears more muted compared to the latter. It’s the perfect middle-ground between practicality and aesthetic.
As for dimensions, Its case measures 48.55mm x 45.4mm with a thickness of 11.8mm. The only lume exists on the hour and minute hands and it isn’t too bright. I would say it’s useful when you’re waking up in the middle of the night and wouldn’t want to see the much brighter light function. Somehow, I do prefer it this way, there seems to be an obsession with a fully-illuminated face, especially for dive watches. However, I’m not a fan of having a green torch glowing on my wrist. If I want to tell the time better though, the light function works well illuminating the small display.
Digital functions
The display tucked between the three and six o’clock positions, the 5611 module provides time, world time, daylight-savings time stopwatch, countdown timer, multifunction alarms, and a digital perpetual calendar function. Personally, I pretty much only used the first two time-telling functions mentioned earlier because a situation without my phone hadn’t found me yet. Otherwise, I had been entirely focused on the analog side of the watch.
Wearing Experience
As the proud owner of this timepiece, I had my fair share of time with it these past few weeks.
Being the only quartz watch in my collection, I know that it always tells accurate time without me doing anything. As a result, it’s my go-to for work days. I had always thought that only mechanical watches are for admiration, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I find myself looking down even when I don’t need to tell the time. And when I do, it’s always a good look because I wouldn’t care less if there had been a scratch.
I also came to realise one thing; people are incredibly intrigued by the transparent watch on my wrist. I had have more compliments than just about any other watches. While this G-shock doesn’t have any traditional horological pizzazz, it gets its huzzah for being something different, and something you don’t see everyday.
Outfit-wise, I’m glad to report this wins. I’m not sure if it’s my nonchalance regarding my casual fits, but this goes well with just about anything casual. I would likely opt-in for something classier if I’m wearing any top with a collar, but at this time, it really doesn’t happen much at this time of my life.
Strap Pairing for the GA-2100 CasiOak!
The adapter and rubber and NATO strap options are available at Nomad Watch Works. I think that anything black or white would fit seamless if it’s not leather. This is one way to change out the look of your G-Shock without going as for as buying customisation sets for them. It adds new flair at a low cost and is definitely an option to explore if you are looking to have a bit of fun with them.
Final Thoughts
For the money, G-shock hit a home-run with the series, it’s a modern cult classic and it deserves to be. The transparent series includes 3 new compelliing timepieces with this one as my choice. I had’t looked back ever since my purchase.
Check out our Instagram Page for our educational infographics as well as our Youtube review of this series. Stay tuned for our next week’s topic!