Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The GWM5610 has become my everyday watch since I bought it back in April. It might not be the most stylish watch I own—though its retro '80s styling makes its own statement—but it's certainly the most versatile, and it's the watch that's on my wrist most of the time. The solar power and atomic synching is why I bought the watch, and for me, these two features make this watch more than worth the price of admission. The solar feature works as advertised. The power indicator was at "M" / Medium when the watch was delivered, but bumped up to "H" / High within a couple days, and has stayed there ever since. Granted, the battery won't last forever—maybe 10 to 15 years—but I'll worry about that around 2030. The atomic sync took a little trial-and-error; being on the east coast, I'm a long way away from the transmitter in Fort Collins. After a few days, I discovered that as long as the 12:00 position on the dial was pointed westward—the direction of the transmitter from my current location—the watch will "catch the wave" every night. On a trip out west, closer to the transmitter, the watch was much less particular about orientation—it even synced from a moving train during an overnight ride. I couldn't get it to sync from a cabin on a cruise ship, though—must be the thick metal hull. I always want my watch to be as accurate as possible, and the syncing accomplishes this. It's perfectly synced with my computer, my phone, the clocks in train stations and airports. On the cruise when it couldn't sync, it didn't drift more than a second off the actual time, so it looks like the accuracy is pretty good even without the sync. I've swam with the watch, snorkeled with it, showered with it, dropped it. It doesn't care. It's a G-Shock. The screen is easy to read. The backlight is nice and bright, though it only lasts for a second or two before it shuts off—shorter than some backlights on non-solar watches. The Auto El works for me, but isn't perfect—occasionally it doesn't go on when you flick your wrist, and occasionally it does go on when you don't need it to—so I generally leave it shut off, unless there's a reason why I need it to light up without physically pressing the button. As for other features, the World Time is useful for travel—whether it's you in another time zone, or someone you care about. The alarm is not super loud, and it only lasts for 10 seconds—but its loud enough to wake me up, and the snooze feature can make it sound again, just in case you don't hear it the first time it goes off. I use it when travelling. Stopwatch is nice to have; I don't use it that much. The countdown timer I use a lot. The watch is comfortable to wear. It's not overly bulky like some of the G-Shocks can be. I personally wouldn't want a bigger watch than this one. I like how it looks—it has a classic design. Not that I would wear it with a suit, but I don't have to wear one most of the time. In short, this watch does everything I need it to do. Thanks to the syncing feature, it keeps perfect time, and thanks to the solar feature and rugged construction, I can expect it to keep doing so. A lot of folks use smartwatches these days. Maybe I will upgrade to one someday myself. For now, though, many smartwatches lack an always-on display, or lack the rugged construction / water-resistance, or have to be charged daily, or require an Internet connection to maintain the correct time. Personally, I'll hold off on a smartwatch until they're a little more like my G-Shock. EDIT - 27 May 2022: I've had this watch for over 5 years now, and it has seen me through countless days at the office, plenty of travel, birth of a child, and a global pandemic. It still looks almost new. It catches radio signal almost every night—it will miss every so often in the winter months, but even then most nights it gets it. During the summer, the RCVD indicator is reliably lit up every day. I traveled with the 5610 recently to a place where it couldn't catch signal, so it didn't sync for a week. It drifted about +3.5 seconds compared to the atomic clock, which isn't bad at all. Note that if you order now, you'll get the GW-M5610-U as opposed to the GW-M5610 model (which is what I have). The newer "U" model has a LED backlight, which doesn't look quite as cool, but still works fine and uses less power. It also has the ability to display the date in DD.MM format, as opposed to MM.DD, and shows the time in Stopwatch and Countdown modes. There are a few extra timezones, and some other features (like swapping the World Time timezone and your home city time). I don't think it's worth the upgrade for me, but if you're buying new, you'll get these additional features, which I think makes the watch even more of a compelling buy than it already was.