As of today I have a fancy Casio Oceanus OCW-S100-1AJF (the silver case/bracelet with the black/blue dial). I love it. I’ve made brief mention in earlier posts that I have recently been bitten by the watch collector bug. In the last 54 weeks I have gone from owning zero watches to about 13. It all started with an Apple Watch Series 2 I received for xmas 2016 from my Dad, shortly thereafter I stumbled across an article about the Seiko 5 (or more here) series of automatic mechanical watches and became enamored with inexpensive mechanical watches. However there are time when a mechanical watch isn’t the best choice, such as motorcycling (which I do frequently in the warm months), or when you want something thin on your wrist that will fit beneath a shirt cuff, or when there is danger of being submerged in water (I’m not partial to Dive watches, which are plenty water proof, but most dressier mechanicals are minimally water resistant). I now have a handful of quartz watches, I am partial to solar-powered quartz’s to minimize the battery changing, and really love the thin Stiletto line from Citizen. I have the obligatory Casio G-Shock (GWM-5610-1CR) for the apocalypse, but of all these, I think this Oceanus may be my favorite.
I call it the “One Watch To Rule Them All” not because I believe it to be the best watch ever created, but because it checks off so many different boxes in a relatively affordable package to serve its purpose (for me) very well. I picked up this watch for $498 shipped to my home. It is officially the most expensive watch I own, but in the world of watches it is affordable for what it provides. Here is what I love about it:
- Stylish: I love the simple, clean, dial on this watch, and think the overall design is elegant. It can be worn for work or play equally well. It’s also thinner than most mechanical watches at 10.5mm, making it wear pretty easily with shirts or sweaters. The watch is well put together and looks great on the wrist.
- Accurate timekeeping: Here in Chicagoland the watch receives the atomic radio signal from Fort Collins, Colorado and updates its time every day to be super-accurate. Plus it’s super easy to change time zones.
- Durable: it features the same Solar-powered Tough Movement system used in many of the analog Casio G-Shocks, plus it has a scratch resistant titanium case and bracelet, and sapphire crystal. Oh, and 10 ATM (100M) water resistance. So it’s a pretty tough cookie. Also, since the case and band are titanium, it is very light on the wrist.
- No batteries to change: Well, there is a battery in there, and someday it will probably need to be changed, but because it is Solar powered that day should be many years down the road. Hopefully about the same amount of a time that one of my automatics needs between cleaning/lubrication.
If I were to travel, take a long vacation to a foreign land, or just needed to choose one watch to keep of my entire collection. It would likely be this watch, though it is not perfect. The Oceanus line is not available in the U.S., so if I need to use it’s 1-year “tourist” warranty, that could be more of a hassle than I want to deal with. (Casio tries to push its Edifice line of classier watches on the U.S., but I don’t like their styling, and at this time of none of them are Solar powered). I also really wish this watch had an EL backlight like my G-Shock (similar to Indiglo) so it was more legible in the dark. It has lume on the hour markers and hands, but a backlight trumps lume… Lastly, I wouldn’t mind it being a bit less expensive. I know that $498 for all the functionality and durability it has is not a bad price, but I hate spending that kind of money on a quartz watch…
I’m a big fan of simple, clean, elegant watches. I don’t like a lot of complications that clutter up the dial. This why the OCW-S100-series speaks to me. There is a newer series out called the OCW-T150-series with a similar style, but the dials are just not as nice looking to me. If you, dear reader, are a fan of more complications, you should check out the entire Oceanus lineup. They have many options with additional complications that may suit your fancy. I own two Casio watches now, and they are both quite impressive in their value, and functionality.
A quick shout out to Chino Watch Co. who I purchased this watch from. While their website is antiquated and the ordering process is unusual (you submit an order without any payment details, and about an hour or so later you get an invoice to pay via PayPal), they had pricing (shipping included) comparable to sketchy and unknown eBay sellers and were super fast to ship. I placed my order around 9:00 PM CT on Wednesday. By the time I woke up Thursday it had been shipped from Tokyo, and amazingly it was delivered to my door by 10:30 AM CT on Monday 1/8/2018. I’ve had watch purchases from Japan and Hong Kong take weeks to arrive from other sellers, so this was refreshing.
synapsethemole 
You must be logged in to post a comment.