Hiking is great, but if you’re not ready, things can go wrong very quickly. When you’re out on a hike you need to remember where you’re meant to go, or you can get horribly lost. Lucky for you, Casio has created the GA-1000 series, giving you your best chance at getting through any journey in one piece. Intrigued? Well let me tell you a little bit more about the GA1000s, and you can make up your mind from that.

First thing’s first, let’s talk about the varieties. Now, this watch comes in Black and Red, Black and Yellow, Black and Blue, Black and Silver, Black and Gold, and just plain black. Please click here for the complete range. They look great and the hands, as well as the indicators, stand out due to their large size.

The reason for this size is that lots of people have complained about Analogue/Digital watches, the biggest gripe being that when you turn on the backlight, it’s practically impossible to see the time unless you squint… Well Casio wasn’t going to let that stand! The arrows and indicators are tread with a neobrite paint, which really stands out at night. That’s one problem solved.

If you’re a hiker or an explorer, you know how easy it is to fall over, and that means you need a watch to survive the elements and the hardships. Now, usually the 100m Shock resistance and 200m Water resistance would be more than enough, but Casio decided to add one more piece of protection. Usually, all of Casio’s watches come with a mineral glass, which is remarkably scratch resistant. In these models though, they’ve replaced it with a combination Mineral/Spherical glass, which is extremely hard to scratch and break.

When you’re in the forest, you gotta make sure you don’t get lost. That’s obvious, anybody can tell you that. The trick is how to avoid it? Well, if you’ve got the GA1000 series of watches, you can use the digital compass. This transforms the hands of the watch into fully functioning compass indicators, and to top it all off, they have what’s known as Bearing Memory. This is a special feature that tells you what direction you were going, and saves it so when you start using the compass again, you can check to make sure you haven’t gotten off course.

Finally, we have a thermometer. This will tell you how hot/cold it is outside, so you have some idea of what to wear during the day. After all, no point in piling on the layers only to end up taking them all off again because of the heat. This thermometer goes from -20 to to 60 degrees celcius, so you can be prepared for all extremes.

Now, everybody knows that there can’t be anything good without the bad, and there is one feature that really annoyed me, as well as a lot of other customers. The digital part of the watch kind of feels like an afterthought. It’s there so Casio can claim it’s an analogue/digital watch but the display on most of these models makes it very hard to read. If you’re happy with the analogue though, then you honestly don’t need to worry about the digital display too much.

Well, there it is guys. I hope you enjoyed this edition of Jimmy B’s guide to Casio. Until Next Time.