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As I said in my 'One Ring' thread http://forums.watchuseek.com/f17/one-ring-find-them-one-ring-bring-them-all-well-three-anyway-563521.html I have recently received three watches and this is one of them.
I am reviewing this first as it is a fairly new model and hasn't been seen much on the forum so far.
I like Protreks and have a definite soft spot for black Ti watches. This is the 'Black Titan' PRW-5100YT-1JF with a Ti bracelet and an inside coated AR sapphire crystal. It is a thing of beauty in my eyes with its subtle polishing and general overall fit and finish with a great quality feel.
Here are a few pictures.
Barometer graph mode (very steady weather here)!
Day mode.
The watch is hard to photograph with its sapphire crystal and its highly polished elements. The inner bezel is very highly polished. The outer bezel has a more matt finish with polished elements at various points, very subtle, very nice!.
This combination of effects is carried through to the bracelet with its highly polished inner links.
However, the overriding reason I got this watch was for its technology. The watch has a huge feature set, yet is mainly analogue. I was fascinated by how Casio have been able to produce such an elegant and complicated piece within the confines of a, largely, traditional watch form.
I prefer this model to the previous PRW-5000 model because of this elegance which is more pronounced in the 5100 series. I mean if you are going for this look you might as well push it as far as you can go.
Make no mistake such a fully featured ABC watch is better expressed, ergonomically, in a full digital format. However, I have a number of those with the the PRX-2000YT at the apex. Can there be a more elegant fully digital watch than this?
So this watch has to compromise a little in function because of form but it is amazing how well it does overall . It is this form that attracts me to it and what makes it stand out from nearly all other ABC watches..
Here are some photos of the various modes. I have already shown the Baro graph and Day modes.
Stopwatch mode.
Timer mode.
Alarm mode. It has five alarms plus hourly signal.
World time mode. In this mode the second hand swings to point to the city/timezone chosen and the WT is shown in digital format.
Received mode which tells you when it last synced and swings between date and time.
Hand set mode which displays time in digital format as well as analogue.
Of course the PRW-5100YT has the tough movement feature which, every hour, checks and adjusts the position of the hands if necessary.
One nice feature is that every time you re-enter timekeeping mode the watch shows 'Home' and the current battery level for a few seconds before switching to whatever timekeeping mode you have set.
Compass mode.
When you enter compass mode the second hand first swings to the compass button to indicate the switch to compass mode and then swings to point to magnetic North. You can of course adjust it to show true north if you wish.
The digital display can show the degrees or the direction as you wish with a push of the adjust button.
However, in the compass mode the second hand is always displaying the degrees by pointing to them on the bezel as well as pointing to North.
Barometer mode.
The second hand first swings to indicate Baro mode then swings to show the pressure change since the last reading, + or - 10 units on the bezel. This is very useful as it will stay in this mode for an hour and can therefore be a good warning of fast weather change.
Thermometer mode.
Altimeter mode.
Again the second hand swings to indicate mode and then swings to indicate height change since the last reading + or - 10 units which are programmable for value.
The watch also has a fully featured 'record' mode with all the usual recording features such as all time records etc and total height changes etc. Not enough space to cover all that here and the manual would need to be read to use these features.
I find the whole thing quite fascinating in such an elegant and traditional package. The AR coating gives the sapphire crystal a bluish tinge in certain light and angles. The watch is a large one at 51mm wide and 56mm to the lugs. However, it wears smaller than this due to its design and it also has wings which makes for a very comfortable fit on the wrist.
It is quite thin, even if not quite as thin as the PRX-2000, and being Ti is quite light weighing just over 100g.
The inner part of the face has an honeycomb effect which again adds to its aesthetic quality. The inner scale is supposed to help you estimate degrees in compass mode according to Casio. The QC looks to be very good as the second hand hits its markers exactly all the way round the dial and I know a lot of people look for this.
The watch has both LED illumination and very good lume. It is good to see Casio starting to get its act together over lume. I wish though that they would go to the lovely blue lume that Citizen uses sometimes.
The conclusion is, if that ergonomic functionality in an ABC watch is your overriding priority then go full digital, if you appreciate elegance and ingenuity together with great features and are prepared to compromise a little on ease of use then this watch is a fantastic prospect.
Finally a few wrist shots.
Mitch
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Originally Posted by a_joemar
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