REVIEWING THE CASIO CA-53W
It seems that I've gone into spring cleaning mode, last weekend I
did the car interior and the carpets, this weekend the bathroom and
kitchen, then I've started today by defrosting the fridge. Somehow
it, or more likely the sudden change to warmer weather, has put me
into a dopey sort of mood. For certain I don't feel like beginning
the task of researching political parties for the Nov. 26th state
election, which was going to be my main weekend job. So instead
I've decided to break all illusions of depth in my writing and give
you a product review on my wristwatch.
In the sense of traditional reviews, this one is probably a bit
late. For one thing, I've been wearing this watch almost every day
for over a decade now, and for another, the model was introduced
all the way back in 1988. I bought it new somewhere around a decade
ago, and it has therefore accompanied me for all of my adult life.
The fact that it's a calculator-watch also rather suggests the type
of adult that I grew into.
Although I don't really remember much about them, I've still got
various other watches that I wore through childhood, all pretty
cheap and long-dead. I've got no idea what put me onto the
existance of calculator watches, as I'm pretty sure I'd never seen
one, even on TV, but I definately did my research on the web.
Transitioning to a good brand, and a correspondingly meaningful
price, was something that I took very seriously, even as a teenager
(comparing with all my research and reasoning about buying that
Atomic Pi SBC shows how little I've changed in this regard). As
such, I didn't do it. I decided to order a cheap no-name calculator
watch from China for less than a fifth of the price, and see how I
liked it before comitting to a real one.
So I started off with a Xinjia X-628, then the typical result of
searching by price for calculator watches on Ebay. It was
predictably poor quality, but served me quite well. Compared with
the Casio, it actually had more calculating functions - square root
and percent, but the print on the buttons soon started wearing off
and it looks like what finally sealed its fate was the mounting
point of the watch band breaking away. In the intervening years the
LCD has 'bled', doubtless a symptom of poor quality manufacture, so
it's no longer usable.
The X-628 therefore followed much the same path as the other dodgy
watches that I'd worn previously. But it had convinced me that a
calculator watch was generally useful. Although it stood out enough
at school that the teachers were well onto me taking it into
calculator-free tests, the convenience of having a calculator on my
wrist was obvious in general life. Of course by this stage everyone
else had calculators on their mobile phones, though the likes of my
mother probably weren't entirely aware of this fact yet. I was
already resolute in my dislike for those gadgets though (even
before they became 'smart'), not to mention socially lacking much
of an application for them.
But mental arithmatic has never been my strong point, I always
forget the numbers involved while I'm working things out and end up
with wildly inaccurate results. Therefore even if I do get it
right, I have to do it again to be sure. I do still try to test
myself by doing sums in my head from time to time, because I'm well
aware that the more I rely on the calculator, the worse my mental
skills will get. But even then it's handy to check with the
calculator afterwards because I never really trust myself.
So after a mostly-forgotten saga of trying to work out the cheapest
supplier (I mainly just remember an awkward conversation trying to
get a quote in a jewlery shop - still I think the only time I've
ever been into one of those), I got the Casio - both my first
decent watch, and decent calculator-watch.
Design-wise, with the Casio CA-53W it's a little easier to press
individual buttons, though it's still all a matter of pressing the
button you want _more_ than the buttons around it. The buttons are
much more solid on the Casio and don't have any print on them to
wear off, but neither watch has any tactile feedback as you press
them. The Casio tries to solve this by beeping when each button
press is registered, though having already gotten used to fumbling
on the other watch's keypad, I turned this off to save battery life.
One frustrating part of the X-628 was that the watch and calculator
functions were completely separate (I suspect they might have been
separate chips entirely). That meant the time and alarm couldn't be
set using the keypad. I use the alarm a lot, so the fact that the
Casio allows quickly setting it from the keypad is vastly more
convenient. Actually the one thing that I could really do with
would be support for setting multiple alarms, but at least it makes
it quick to set the next alarm after the first one goes off. The
more integrated design also allows for better use of screen area.
Although the X-628 actually has a slightly taller screen, it's
always split between the time and calculator displays - on the
Casio you switch modes from one to the other by pressing the button
on the side.
Other functions of the Casio are the stopwatch and a second clock
for different timezones. The stopwatch is sometimes handy, and
works quite well, though I've never bothered to figure out all its
lap-timing functions because I'm not sporty. The second timezone
isn't really much use for me because I keep all my international
communications as asynchronous as possible.
Physically the watch itself has withstood some remarkably rough
treatment. It's been dropped, knocked about, vibrated, exposed the
smoke heat and water of fires, covered in mud, animal poo, sawdust,
and old grease. It does show the scars for sure - all the edges
have that worn and rounded look to them, and there are a few
scrapes on the front, including the screen. Although it's probably
most obviously inappropriate for farmwork, I think the most damage
has been taken while I've been working on the Jag. These days I try
to remember to take it off before trying to reach around the car's
mechanics, but it's easy to forget and space is always so tight
that it always gets clattered against bits of metal while I'm
trying to dive deep towards some problematic part. By luck, it was
only recently that in such a situation I caused a truely
obstructing scrape on the screen, yet it's still easily readable.
The battery has also lasted exceptionally well. Over ten years on,
and with the calculator getting a fair bit of use, I still haven't
needed a new battery in it. But the weak spot has been the watch
bands. I bought it with a rubber watch band, and indeed I've always
been accustomed to them compared to the coldness of metal bands,
but this long-lasting watch has taught me how short-lived rubber
watch bands tend to be. The original only lasted a few years, after
which I bought a generic replacement, and at this point the band I
use is probably at least the fifth. As someone who hates to buy new
items, this regular consumption of watch bands frustrates me a lot,
but I haven't found a solution for it. It always strikes me how
they come feeling so subtile and rubbery, then end up stiff and
brittle, I guess it's just the state of material technology. I
wonder whether it's sweat, UV, or just exposure to air that causes
it though.
Anyway, the band isn't anything specific to the watch itself, and
if I could learn to live with a stainless steel watch band, then
maybe it wouldn't be a problem at all. Overall it's turned out
excellent value for money (though I don't really have much clue
what I paid for it except from current online pricing in the
$35-$60 range), and a reliable companion for someone who still
refuses more modern personal electronic accessories.
That said, these last couple of years it has faced occasional
competition from an old self-winding mechanical wristwatch that I
was given among some more of my late grandfather's things. I might
talk some more about that watch itself in another post, but I've
taken it on in something of a symbolic role. The precision and
calculator functionality of the Casio is what I rely on most days,
but when I want to go for a drive or just not achieve anything
technical, then I don't need those functions and therefore I wear
the mechanical watch. Plus it does help to break the mental
dependence that I've inevitably developed on the calculator, and
digital time representation.
- The Free Thinker.
PS. The Casio CA-53W is noted online for its appearances in the
Back to the Future movies, as well as a few other successful movies
and TV shows. So it's funny how the dodgy Xinjia X-628 model (also
apparantly branded as the Kenko KK628) actually found its way into
a similarly dodgy 2012 horror movie:
https://www.watch-id.com/sightings/kenko-kk628-calculator-watch-devon-bostick-dead-dawn
https://www.watch-id.com/search?search_api_multi_fulltext=CA-53W
