CasioMen's F201WA-1A Black Resin Multi-Function Alarm Sport Watch
S**Y
Great inexpensive watch.
This is a very high functioning watch for the price.It's not glamorous, except in a retro sense, but it's doubtful anyone would bother stealing it, either.It is true that the alarm beep can be a little hard to hear in a noisy environment, or if you're asleep with it on your wrist and your arm is under a bunch of blankets. Otherwise, while not super loud, you should be able to hear it. For me, if it's something really important, I will set multiple alarms (especially alarm #1 which has the snooze function) and the countdown timer so that it keeps beeping at me periodically.I've had the watch for four months on the original battery. So far so good, and I use the alarms, countdown timer and hourly chime every day.Having 5 alarms, instead of one, is a great convenience so you can choose which ones to activate, rather than constantly changing the alarm time.The light is a little green light from the bottom left corner. It provides ample light to see the time in the dark. It's not fancy like indiglo, etc. But it works. It only remains lit for about 1.5 seconds. Even if you keep the light button pressed it will turn off. I assume that is to save battery and to prevent you from trying to use it as a micro flashlight. One quirk with the light which annoys me is that the light turns off when you press any other button. This makes it a little hard to set an alarm in the dark, for example. Instead, you have to turn on the light and then count your button presses and then turn the light back on to verify. It's not a really big deal, but it's annoying.When pressing the mode button the watch puts out a little beep. The pitch of the beep is higher when it returns to the primary time screen. I find this to be useful when I want to make sure that it is not in any of the other screens so that I don't accidentally make changes to things like the alarms or countdown timer and I either don't want to look down at my wrist... or when it's dark and pressing any button would turn off the light (as mentioned above).I don't foresee any problems with the band, although I haven't had it long enough to really say. I wear it a lot and am not exactly gentle with it. No band problems or screen scratches yet.I do like that it is thinner than most other similar watches.-----Edit:I was wrong about the light turning off when you press any other button. It only turns off by button press by way of the "mode" (bottom left) button.Owned now for just over 10 months. No sign of battery running low.I do still marvel somewhat that I have not managed to scratch the face, yet. I have banged it against stuff pretty hard while working, etc. Of course, now that I've jinxed it, I will probably drop a bit of hamburger bun on it at the "glass" will shatter. Note to self, don't eat any hamburgers today.-----Update:Addressing the question about the countdown timer, it does have an auto-repeat ("A.RPT" on the screen) which will cause the countdown time to reset upon reaching zero and begin counting down another interval of the same duration. Great function. So you can have it beep at you every ten minutes, for example. Useful for interval training, perhaps. I set it to 28 minutes to prompt me to move on to the next task instead of spending all day editing my reviews on Amazon.Alas, after 13 months of ownership with near daily wear (and often wearing to bed, but never it the shower) part of the case cracked where the band pins go in. I don't really know how it happened. I don't remember hitting the watch on anything, I just looked down and noticed it. At first I thought it was the band failing, but the band is actually still in great condition. I was able to carefully apply superglue and it seems to be holding just fine now after a few weeks. You read about this happening to Casio watches every now and then, so I suppose it is just par for the course. I was able to fix it easily, but the price of the watch also has not changed since I bought it. Replacing it would be cheap and certainly something I would consider if I wasn't able to repair it.Original battery still works. Still no scratches on the face.-----Update 2 (2/13/19)I've had this watch for 5 years, 2 months and 2 days. I wear it almost daily. It has held up nicely.I am going to guess that what I am experiencing is the first signs of the battery starting to get low. When using the countdown timer, it does not always beep when it reaches zero. I thought it beeped the first time when I used it today, but not subsequent sequential timers (set to 4 minutes, making waffles). The regular alarm still beeps, the hourly chime still beeps, the buttons still beep when you press them, the light still comes on, it still keeps reasonably accurate time (actually seems to be running a little fast, like 2 minutes gain since I last adjusted, which was probably at DST "fall back"). Upon reaching zero the countdown timer holds on 00:00 for a couple of seconds, and then resets to the pre-set interval. IIRC, it would hold on zeroes while beeping. So, it's as if it is trying. All of the other beeping seems to be the same volume as before.Ok, well, as I was making waffles while writing this. When reaching zero for the last waffle it beeped like it should. So, all of the functionality is there, which is what makes me think it is battery. I know they advertise it as a 10 year battery, but I don't know if they meant the original battery, or a brand new battery? I also don't have any way of knowing how long the watch Sat on the shelf before I received it. The manual also mentions that expected battery life is dependent on certain usage criteria regarding alarms and light usage. I think my usage has exceeded those specs. In all, 5 years for a "$1" battery is great. MAYBE it just needs to be "rebooted," i.e. take out the battery and put it back in. I've never done that, and you know how comouter things are after they've been running for a while. Sometimes they just need a fresh start.I've seen some reviews mention that it is too small. Yeah, that's the idea. Sometimes you don't want a big ol' medallion on your wrist. Casio makes other models that accomplish that.I have also still not managed to scratch the "glass." I've even eaten planty of hamburgers while wearing it (see above). In fact,specifically for this update, I just dropped a freshly made waffle directly onto the glass from a height of about 12". I was nervous, but it came out unscathed. The watch was also unharmed.
D**
Happy I bought it
If you’re looking for a legible, small and lightweight watch packed with features this is it. It’s very similar in size to the Casio f105, just a touch longer and thicker but the same width and weight. But this one has multi function alarms, a countdown timer and a world time setting. And a decent backlight. It’s every bit as comfortable as the small Casios we love to wear but packed with more features. This watch is a winner.
R**M
great but small
great watch and features, but too small
B**N
The listing is inaccurate - band size is 18mm NOT 22mm. But its a Casio with an actual TIMER!
Its a casio, but it has a timer. That just about sums up the watch. Casio watches are pretty great, so thats a real good start. I cannot for the life of me figure out why timer functions are so exceedingly rare meanwhile every watch in the universe has a stopwatch function. I have literally never once needed a stopwatch function. I use a timer almost every single day, often multiple times. Weather that's cooking, napping, budgeting time for an activity/break etc I find myself using a timer constantly. But by contrast I use a stopwatch so incredibly infrequently that the watch would genuinely be better for me if it simply didn't have that function for me to cycle past.So if you also want a timer, and you want a basic casio this is apparently the only option. somehow. but at least its a very good option.My main gripe about the actual watch is the night light function. it only lasts for like 2 seconds, and you cannot hold the button to light it longer. frankly when I press the button it should last until I turn it off again or a number of minutes have gone by. 2 seconds genuinely feels like a prank. I just hope I don't ever have to actually interact with the watch in low light conditions. And again, this seems to be standard and I really don't understand it. Still though, relatively minor issue and its a great watch either way.The watchband is also pretty standard cheap watch style band and quite uncomfortable as a result. Definitely worth buying a replacement band. which is a great segue into the listing issue I mention in the title.The watch band size posted is wrong. The band is 18mm. Most casio watches in this bracket are iirc. I ordered this watch and a band at the same time, since I knew I wouldn't like the plastic one it comes with. I very nearly ordered an 18mm band but thought I had better check the listing to be safe. It said 22mm, so I ordered 22mm. Turns out it was 18mm after all. IDK if it was someone copy/pasting from another listing, or someone measured the band at its widest point instead of the actual connection not knowing that its a specific type of number people would need and have expectations of. I had to return the watch band after a call with amazon support where I explained the issue - but the page still isn't fixed despite them acknowledging the issue. Looking into the Q/A there are other people who had the exact same issue as me. I just hope they did the return at the expense of the listing creator and not the watch band maker. It should take literally 5 seconds to fix this, but they leave it up and cause issues instead, despite being made aware that it is a problem.
Trustpilot
2 weeks ago
2 months ago