The new Casio PRG260-1 is an excellent timepiece that combines outdoor ruggedness with a ton of useful features. It looks good on your arm with it’s resin band and digital display. Among the features is the LCD and the Tough Solar Power technology and the Triple Sensor technology.
The one-touch Triple Sensor has a sensor for measuring barometric pressure and altitude, a thermo sensor for measuring the temperature, and a compass. There is a power-saving function that allows the watch to conserve power if light isn’t available. It even maximizes it’s solar rechargeable battery by judging ambient lighting conditions and knowing when to activate the backlight at a flick of the wrist.
Fitted with a black resin band the face is surrounded by a stainless-steel rotating bezel that enables you to switch between the time and compass functions. It’s also water resistant up to 200 meters. As mentioned this watch has a number of useful features like sunrise and sunset data which can come in handy for camping. The dial displays the time in 12/24 hours formats and the stopwatch allows you to track time with 1/10 second and 24 hour countdown timers.
As far as wearing the watch is concerned the band itself is not very well engineered. On the one hand, it will not let go of your wrist which is a good thing. On the other hand, it’s quite complicated to remove until you get the hang of it. Even then it requires a bit of fiddling around with it. As far as the settings are concerned this has mainly to do with whether you can use all that the watch has to offer. Once you take the watch out of the box you will want to immediately get it working. Getting everything together takes some time, so you might want to find an hour or two where you can focus on the task at hand. Read the instruction manual carefully.
Also, the accuracy is nothing to write home about as there is a plus or minus error that requires that you calibrate the watch from time to time. Another thing is that while the face is definitely stylish, to read everything some might need to view the watch at a 45 degree angle.
At a price of around $150, it’s a good buy when you consider the features that go into it. However, if you are just looking for a watch, and not a feature watch, then you are getting more than what you bargained for.
