The Giez is part of Casio’s G-Shock line, meaning that it’s designed to withstand harsher conditions and isn’t as sensitive to being hit or dropped. The casing both looks and feels solid, nothing cheap about this watch. I chose the GS1100-2A because of it’s blue face. For me, the blue face appeared to be slightly easier to read than the black face of the GS1100-1A (which otherwise is the same watch). I also just liked the color.

The display itself consists of a traditional watch dial with three smaller chronograph-style dials within. The hour and minute hand work as you would expect, but what at first appears to be the second hand is in fact not the second hand at all. Seconds are displayed by the small inner dial at the bottom center. The large hand that looks like a second hand is really used as an indicator to assist in selecting city time zones, as well as some other functions. In the stopwatch mode, this same hand serves to measure 1/20th second increments.

The two other inner dials on the main indicate the day of the week (mo,tu,we,etc…)and the hour of the day (using a 24-hour scale.) There’s also a small window to display the current date.

The Giez comes with a resin watch band. I would have preferred a metal band (simply for style), but the resin band is suitable for harsher environments, and so it’s standard on G-Shock watches.

Another feature of the GS1100-2A is that it uses Casio’s “Tough Solar” technology to keep the battery charged. Unlike non-solar watches, the battery in the Giez is rechargable, and depends upon the solar receptor (on the face of the watch) to keep it charged. Without light, the battery will last only about 5 months, as compared to the 2, 5 and 10-year lifespans of non-solar watch batteries. The manual contains a guide as to how much light the watch should get each day in order to keep going. If you’re outside in direct sunlight (50,000 lux), you’ll only need to expose your watch for about 8 minutes and if you’re inside, with your watch exposed to direct sunlight through a window, you must keep it exposed for about 30 minutes per day. On the other hand, if you’re inside (and not near a window on a sunny day), only exposed to typical fluorescent lighting, you’ll need to keep the watch exposed to light for about 8 hours. Assuming you’re wearing your watch, that means you’ll have to wear it outside of your sleeve so that it can charge properly. Casio recommends that when you’re not wearing the watch, place it somewhere that will be exposed to bright light. This may not be convenient for everybody.

In terms of accuracy, like many quartz watches, the Giez maintains an accuracy of +/- 20 seconds per month. However, it has one additional feature to help that along. The GS1100-2A is also part of Casio’s Wave Ceptor “Atomic” line of watches. Each night (the exact time depends upon your home region) the Giez will attempt to receive the UTC time signal generated by the NIST Atomic Clock in Colorado and synchronize its time. Doing this nightly will keep your watch accurate to less than a second of the atomic clock’s time. It also makes sure your weekday and date settings are correct. If you have the automatic Daylight Savings Time feature activated, the watch will even adjust itself forward and/or back one hour at the proper times of the year.

The actual time synchronization signal is broadcast by a 50,0000 watt transmitter in Fort Collins, Colorado, which (depending upon atmospheric conditions) can be received up to 2000 miles away. This covers the mainland US, but folks in Hawaii and Alaska may not be able to get the signal. Even then, geographic conditions (such as mountains) and other obstacles (such as buildings and tall trees) can also inhibit reception. So, there’s no guarantee that your watch will be able to synchronize automatically. I live in New Hampshire and was worried about that after hearing that the Northeast is particularly difficult in terms of time signal reception. The first day I got the watch, I tried a manual synchronization from inside my home office on the first floor. Even though I put the watch near a window as instructed in the manual, the synchronization failed. Before I went to bed however, I placed the watch on an upstairs window sill that faces west. (The manual recommends placing the watch by a window.) During the night, the watch will make up to 6 attempts to receive the UTC signal and synchronize itself. Supposedly, the signal is best received in the early morning hours. The next day I woke up and immediately went over to the window to check on the watch. The Giez provides a way to let you know if the last synchronization attempt was successful and sure enough, it had worked fine. Of course, what that means is that if I want to keep the watch synchronized with the Atomic clock, I’ll have to make sure to take it off and put it on the window sill each night. That’s not going to be a big deal for me, but it may be to some. The transmitter in Colorado is not the only one in the world, there are also transmitters in Japan, the U.K. and Germany. Most Casio Wave Ceptor watches will recieve the US and Japan signals (helpful for those traveling to Japan.) However, the GS1100-2A also recieves the the U.K. and Germany signals, which most of the other Wave Ceptor watches do not. Unless you’ll be travelling to those areas of the world, that extra functionality won’t be useful to you. (I travel a lot, so that was a factor for me.)

As far as operating the watch is concerned, it’s obvious that the more features a watch has, the more buttons (and button sequences) you’ll need to learn. The GS1100-2A has a stopwatch and an alarm. It also can be used as a world time watch, with settings for 29 time zones. There are 4 buttons on the watch (one protruding from each quadrant of the case). Depending upon the function you want, you must press one or more of those buttons in specific sequences, and/or hold them in for specific lengths of time. Some won’t want to be bothered to memorize those sequences while others won’t mind … but it’s something to be aware of. So far I’ve learned only a few of the basic sequences, but I’m still referencing the manual for most operations. It took me a bit of time to initially set up the watch because of that. The manual is complete, but a bit confusing in some sections. It could have been written better.

Interestingly, when the watch is adjusting it’s time, or transitioning from one world time zone to another, or changing from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time, motors inside the watch actually rotate the hands automatically, so there’s no need for you to manually turn a knob.

All in all, I like this watch. It’s quite solid and appears to be well built. I can tell it’s going to last awhile. It has a good feature set, and it’s a bit more stylish than many “geeky” hi-tech watches. Like many hi-tech watches, there’s a bit of a learning curve in terms of it’s operation; And as I stated earlier, in order to take advantage of the Solar and Atomic Synchronization features, you may have to alter your daily habits in order to accommodate the need for light, and to also position the watch near a window at night in order for it to receive the time signal. If the the solar feature isn’t of interest to you and you don’t want to have to think about keeping it charged, I’d definitely look at a different watch. Most of the non-solar watches offer much better battery life. Also, if you’re living in a city (in between tall buildings) or if you are nestled in between high mountains where signals may not get through, you might not want to pay the extra bucks for the atomic time feature. I lucked out and can get the signal, but others may not be that lucky.

The retail price of this watch is $300.00. I paid about $200.00, but I’ve seen it advertised on-line for a few dollars less (although shipping costs may offset that.)