Casio W96H, the watch I thought I'd never buy

I seriously thought I would never buy a Casio watch in this style...

...but I did, and it's great.

By "in this style", I mean the type with extra large digits on the face. Extra large for a Casio, that is.

What you're seeing above is a Casio W96H. The feature set and operation is identical to the W800H. Where the main differences lie is in size, weight and strap length. The W800H is 41.5mm tall, 35.5mm wide, 12.5mm thick and weighs 40g. The W96H is 37mm tall, 34mm wide, 11mm thick and weighs 30g. The W800H's strap is longer than the W96H.

I specifically avoided this style for a long time because I know the W800H doesn't fit my wrist well. I have one of those wrist types that's smaller and flat on top, which makes finding a watch that fits right difficult. But I decided to take a chance with the W96H and it worked out great. It's a keeper for me.

Out of every Casio watch I've ever owned, this is by far the easiest to read. And it's not just because of the large digits but also because the layout totally makes sense. Big three-character weekday at top left, big time in the middle, year at bottom left, month-day at bottom right.

Having the year displayed is useless 10 months out of the year. But in January and February it is useful for me because I routinely forget the year has changed for those two months. And the rest of the time, having the year displayed isn't in the way of anything, so it's not a big deal with it being there.

Feature set is minimal. Time, single alarm with snooze, stopwatch, dual time feature, and that's it.

As a tool watch however, the W96H really nails it where it counts. Ultra-legible time with date, weekday and year all on a single screen with zero clutter. The night light is green and works well too.

I wasn't sure I'd like this timepiece mainly because of sizing issues, but it fits my wrist correct, and I'm pretty sure the W96H is the only digital watch that has the largest digits in a smaller case size.

I did a video on how to set the time and date on it, see it below.

Published 2019 Feb 25