I really enjoy this watch and I agree with all of the pro's of the other reviewers. It's well built, solid, and wears well everyday. I'm usually pretty abusive with my watches (drops, scrapes, salt water, sweat, and the gym) and I have intentionally punished this watch to see if it lives up to all the hype. So far, no scratches on the band or mineral face. With some soap and water, this thing cleans up quickly and looks new again.

Although, I don't know about the negative review about the LCD being dim. I haven't had a problem thus far and if using the backlight, the LCD is visible in all lighting conditions (pitch black or blindingly bright).

And an additional plus, my girlfriend loves the fact that it has a very smooth surface and well rounded edges. She used to complain about how my watch band would scratch her when we held hands and such, so this is something to consider if you have the same problem. Not a complaint yet!

Love this watch, love the styling, and would buy it again if I needed to. 5 stars

bought it form Amazon through USPS in February of 2006 from Baghdad, Iraq. Wore it the whole year in Baghdad as well as in compbat operations in Babil Province. Excellent performance. Only problem was that my Iraqi counterparts always wanted to trade their watch for mine.... 5 stars

I have another GShock watch at home - all digital - and it's held up very well (even the band) throughout its past 5 years of wear. I wish I could say the same about my Timex Ironman watch (see my other reviews to read about it). The Ironman's band split at the buckle hole I use daily. Timex bands tend to specifically fit only certain Timex watches - they're not interchangeable and they're difficult to find replacements for. This GShock represents my new "durable watch" choice after a lot of online browsing and research.

The Pro's:

This new one is from Casio GShock's "Street Rider" series. To drive home the point (no pun intended), the band has a way-cool tire tread appearance to it. Overall, I'm happy with the watch. It's light-weight and doesn't look bad on my smallish wrist. I can't tell you how well it actually keeps time but my experience with Casio watches has been very good with that respect. There's no stem to pull out and turn to adjust the analog hands - you do that with the buttons via a special LCD menu mode. The really neat part of this is the minute hand only "ticks" every 20 seconds and does so in perfect unison with the LCD's seconds display. So, when the LCD time says it's 1:00:00 exactly, you can be certain the minute hand will always be directly on the analog minute marker. The LCD does have a backlight which causes all 3 LCD areas of the face to glow a bright turquoise. The hands have a luminous glow of their own but this fades like all glow-in-the-dark materials, requiring exposure to an external light source to charge up the glow again. The face is a very dark green which makes the hands stand out nicely. The crystal is a genuine mineral crystal (not cheap plastic or even mere glass) which is very durable and typically will not scratch even under rigorous treatment.

The Con's:

This watch has a negative LCD display (white numbers on a black background). I deliberately picked this one over an almost identical model sporting the typical black-on-white LCD display because the negative display was more visually striking. Unfortunately, a negative LCD tends to reduce the legibility of the digits unless you're almost pointing the watch directly at your face with the right amount of light bouncing off it. Of course, you could use the backlight in especially dark circumstances. The analog hands will sometimes cover the digits, again reducing legibility of the LCD. The band is very long - good for a large wrist but not for mine. On the plus side though, it was very easy to snip off the tail end of the band so adjustments were a non-issue.

Summary:

For under $80 this watch offers a slew of features (a lot of them, audible). It's a GShock so you know it'll take a lot of punishment and outlast anything else strapped to your wrist. I wouldn't consider it a dress watch but I feel comfortable wearing it daily, on the job. It's light on the wrist and not exceptionally bulky (despite its appearance). The two-toned brushed-steel-and-black case looks great with the tire tread band. The instruction manual's "Care of the watch" section actually mentions how it's okay to use this watch while scuba-diving or using a chainsaw. In fact, their whole "care" section seems to be a description of what you wouldn't want to do wearing a normal watch. 4 stars

Nice watch. I'm a big fan of the G-shock series, they're very durable watches. This watch replaced a G-shock I had for 15 years that the original battery lasted 14 of those years. The watch can take alot of punishment. 4 stars

I needed a watch with an analog/digital combo in order to determine the time quickly but still have an alarm, timer, stopwatch, etc. All in all, this is an attractive watch. The negative LCD might not be as clear as standard but I haven't had any problems reading it. The circular second-hand display is rather superfluous as each tick indicating one second is very small and not easy to read so I just don't try. It is definitely well built with a mineral crystal lens which is difficult to scratch and plastic guards around the lens to further keep it from harm. The minute hands moves one fifth of a minute every 20 seconds so the analog part is always in sync with the digital part which is kind of neat. All the functions work just fine although the alarm/timer tone is so faint and lasts for only about 5 seconds so unless the watch is totally uncovered and there is only a little background noise, I can't hear the alarm go off. My only other gripe is that while the the digital part and the seconds display lights up with the backlight, there is no way to keep it lit for more than two seconds and it won't stay lit while changing functions so if you're in the dark and need to use the timer, without knowing how many times to hit the menu button, you would need to hit menu, then light, then menu, then light, over and over until you found it. Speaking for someone who needs full functionality in the dark, this watch looks nice but doesn't fit what I needed. 3 stars