The idea of needing to spend a lot of money to get a lot of watch is an idea Casio has been destroying for years.
Honestly, how often are you diving, rescuing trapped miners from a kilometer underground and underwater, logging trees in the Pacific Northwest, or launching an amphibious attack against hostile forces in a remote jungle?
Never never never. But I get it, and I have more than a couple of watches that can handle that sort of treatment. They do have fantastic features and feel great to wear, even if they are extreme overkill.
But that’s not what we have here. The Casio AE-1200WH-1BVDF “Casio Royale” – so nicknamed because of it’s resemblence to a Seiko worn by James Bond himself in Octopussy – looks like it could launch and track ICBMs; but alas it’s just a normal watch.
What exactly that means is more than you would expect, especially for the price of a dinner for two. 100m water resistance means it’ll handle any swimming duties, and it has nice features like a stopwatch, timer, alarms, and world time. The 10 year battery life is a really nice little bonus.
It’s not massive, yet the buttons are easy to push – and if you’ve owned any sort of Casio, G-SHOCK or otherwise, you’ll already know pretty much how all the functions work. Even the LED backlight works really well. But what makes this watch unique is the face layout, with the funky analog display (which is hardly readable, but hey it’s cute) and the world map highlighting what is your current timezone.
But the best part (aside from the price) is that big, easily-readable digital display. There are black, silver, green, and bronze case options, all resin, with differing combinations of plastic or steel bands, and each with positive display. This particular model has a green/gold background with the positive display, and it is super-easy to see at a glance – that’s not something you can say about many digitals.
This watch is inexpensive, loaded with great features, fits comfortably for everyday use (it weighs nothing, only 39 grams!), looks “retro-cool” and is fun to wear. I can’t fault it, and can see why some collectors have picked up every option out there, it’s certain to be a “future classic”.
Here are the stats:
- Case / bezel material: Resin
- Resin Band
- Resin Glass
- 100-meter water resistance
- LED light
Selectable illumination duration, afterglow - Multi Time (4 different cities)
- World time
31 time zones (48 cities + coordinated universal time), daylight saving on/off, Home city/World time city swapping - 1/100-second stopwatch
Measuring capacity: 23:59’59.99”
Measuring modes: Elapsed time, split time, 1st-2nd place times - Countdown timer
Measuring unit: 1/10 second
Input range: 1 second to 24 hours (1-second increments, 1-minute increments and 1-hour increments) - 5 daily or one-time alarms
- Hourly time signal
- Full auto-calendar (to year 2099)
- 12/24-hour format
- Button operation tone on/off
- Regular timekeeping: Hour, minute, second, pm, month, date, day
- Accuracy: ±30 seconds per month
- Approx. battery life: 10 years on CR2025
- Size of case : 45×42.1×12.5mm
- Total weight : 39g