after buying casio watches off and on for 15 years...

I recently bought a second Casio AE1000W. I still have the first one but don't know when it was bought. I'm thinking it has to be at least a decade old. I do remember I bought it from a Target store in Tampa Bay Florida. Which one? No idea, but the reason I remember it was from Target is because of a price match thing that got the price down to about 15 bucks. The price of an AE1000W now is of course more, but it's still not crazy-expensive.

My reason for buying a second one is because it's a 2010 model still being made today, I like it, and wanted a backup. Fortunately, Casio is still making the AE1000W exactly the same as they did in '10, easy-press buttons and all, which I very much appreciate.

I was favoring the W735H for a while, but the thickness and weight of it was annoying me. That watch is 51.7mm lug-to-lug, 47.1mm diameter, 16.1mm thick, 50g in weight. After that, I favored the WS1600H, which is 45mm lug-to-lug, 42.1mm diameter, 12.5mm thick, 39g weight. Much nicer, but it too started annoying me because the buttons are annoyingly stiff and I'm not a fan of the menu system. An example of that is that it takes 5 mode button presses just to get to the alarm screen. Dumb.

Then there's the AE1000W, which is functionally identical to the AE1200WH, but without the stiff buttons nor the annoying layout. 48.2mm lug-to-lug, 45mm diameter, 13.8mm thick, 40g weight.

The most annoying thing to the point of being almost infuriating about the AE1200WH is the insert sitting on top of the LCD.

Specifically, I'm talking about the black bar just below the map. That stupid bar casts a shadow, effectively making the date unreadable when viewing it outside during daylight. It is a common mod for AE1200 owners to take the watch apart, take out the insert and cut that bar just to get rid of that shadow. There's no need to do this on the AE1000W since the date is displayed at the bottom of the LCD.

A feature I use is the countdown timer and can't go without it. If I didn't need the timer, I'd honestly wear a W218H all the time. That watch has ridiculously good legibility with no LCD washout, absolute top tier night light, very nice easy-press buttons, great size, looks like a G-SHOCK square, light weight...

...but again, I need that timer as I do use it often. And as it turns out, the AE1000W is the Casio watch I fight with the least, so that's what's on my wrist.

For the past 15 years, I've been buying Casio watches. Simple ones, complicated ones, big, small, digital, analog, ana-digi, and so on. I've determined that what I get along with best is something lightweight that's 100% digital, shows time + day + month + date on the home screen, has multiple alarms, and of course the countdown timer. The weekday has to be 3 letters like WED for Wednesday instead of just WE. The menu system it uses has to make sense. Numbers when adjusting settings must be able to be scrolled forward or backward. The watch must have easy-press grippy buttons or I want nothing to do with it. The battery has to be easy to replace. The style has to be basic black with wide (meaning not F-91W skinny) strap. AE1000W covers all those bases.

AE1000W has two basic black models. AE1000W-1AV and AE1000W-8AV. Both of mine are 1AV which has some small text in a light gold/brown and black everywhere else, which is fine. In photos, that text looks like a louder orange. It's not, and is gold/brown like I said. The 8AV, a new colorway for this year, has that same text in a muted blue. I did consider getting that as my second AE1000W, but said nope, I'll stick with what I know.

There is a specific alarm feature I really like that I've only seen on the AE1000 and AE1200, which is 1-ON. Instead of having a worthless "snooze" feature or alarms that can sound on a particular date (very annoying to set), you have 3 options for each of the 5 alarms. ON, 1-ON or OFF. ON and OFF are self-explanatory. When set to 1-ON, the alarm sounds at the time set, then automatically switches to OFF. What makes this great is you don't have to remember to go back and disable the alarm once after it sounds. If you want that alarm to repeat at the same time every day, that's what ON is for. If you need it to just sound once and then disable until you need it again, 1-ON. Very nice feature.

The alarm setting is a very good example of what I mean by fighting with a watch. On other Casios, that stupid alarm once set will sound every day. If it sounds on a day when I don't want it to, that's annoying. If I actually need the alarm to sound but forget to enable it, also annoying. The 1-ON alarm feature eliminates two annoyances, so it's a watch I fight with less.

But that doesn't mean I don't fight with it. As good as 1-ON is, the AE1000W is missing something I have on other Casios. On both the W735H and WS1600, when setting an alarm, the current time is also shown at top while setting it, which is very convenient. There are times I'll go to set an alarm and forget what time I just saw two screens ago, so I have to leave the alarm screen, go back to home screen, read the time, back to alarm setting, set again. The infuriating thing is that Casio could have switched the bottom part of the LCD switch to show the current time while setting the alarm, but they didn't do that.

Is there a 100% digital Casio model other than AE1000 and AE1200 that has multiple alarms, AND shows the current time while setting an alarm, AND has 1-ON? Other than the AE2000W and AE1400WH, which are basically just bigger versions of the AE1000W that I can't wear, no.

Not having the current time shown while setting the alarm on the AE1000W isn't a deal-breaker since having the 1-ON setting for all 5 alarms is so convenient.

I have other small complaints about the AE1000W, but they're not worth mentioning because the positives outweigh them. I can adjust the night light to stay lit for 1.5 or 3 seconds. Good. There is a physical thin vertical line on the LCD at bottom separating the day from the date. Good. The leftmost digit for the larger numbers is not "scrunched" when it shows a digit other than 1 (many Casios purposely make the leftmost digital smaller). Good.

The menu system does make sense, but there are four oddball settings.

Mute feature. That's a press-and-hold of the bottom left button for 4 seconds, then MUTE appears at top left of the panel. Repeat to unmute.

Auto Display feature. Four different time zones, T-1 through T-4, can be set for the home screen. To have the AE1000W auto-scroll through them, press-and-hold bottom right until a beep happens. Each time zone is then displayed for 2 seconds until you leave the home screen or short press of bottom right button.

To swap one time zone for the other, such as swapping T-1 with T-3, you have to select it first with bottom right, then press top left AND top right. A quick double-beep happens, and one time zone is swapped with the other. Repeat process to switch it back.

To swap the "world time" to home time, press bottom left to go to WT screen, press top left AND top right. Repeat to switch it back.

Before writing this, I totally forgot about the top left + top right button combo to do the time zone swap thing and had to look it up in the manual. But I remembered everything else.

Things I've learned after buying way too many Casios for about 15 years

1. Solar sucks.

Better to just use a "10-year battery" model, provided the battery is relatively easy to change. The AE1000W is one such model.

2. Modding ruins watches.

I did try my hand at modding with a few Casios I owned in the past. Bad idea. Don't do it.

3. Basic black is the only style that works on a digital.

I've owned Casios in other colors, and got rid of them all. If it has the resin strap, what works best is black strap, black case, positive LCD panel.

4. Dopey text sucks.

Casio is infamous for putting way too much printed and/or embossed text on their digitals. At least with the AE1000W, that text is kept to a minimum. For a Casio, that is.

5. Atomic timekeeping sucks.

This is all Casio Wave Ceptor models. I own one, the WV58. Works fine, but in reality, the worst that can happen for any plain non-atomic Casio digital is that it will be off by 30 seconds after 30 days. Again, that's a worst case scenario. That being true, plain quartz is pretty much just as good as atomic.

6. Tool-specific models suck.

I've owned "Fishing Gear" Casio models, "Runner's" models, and the like. I don't use any of that tool-specific crap. Just give me a way to read the time and date in a way I like, alarms that can be set how I like, a countdown timer, and I'm good.

7. All Casio digitals look goofy.

There's no way around this. If it's not the dopey text on the case, it's the case shape. If it's not the case shape, it's the text on the panel. If it's not the text on the panel, it's the way the buttons stick out. It's always something. I've learned to accept the goofiness of Casio digital watch design, especially considering there's really no such thing as a truly classy digital timepiece. The closet thing I have to a 100% digital classy Casio is the B650WD. Dopey text is kept to a minimum, LCD panel is clear of any inserts, and the minimalist design works. That's as least-goofy as you can get.

Right now, the AE1000W suits me unless Casio comes up with something else that would suit better.

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Published 2025 Dec 4