Casio is the name which I was well aware of even before I knew ABC of Watches. The reason was simple. Casio Calculators were a rage and highly up market amongst students. ]
As a PCM student you can very well imagine the utility of scientific calculators and Casio was and still is undisputed king of Calculators. I never used Casio calculators though as Orpat was much more affordable and very well sufficed my needs.
And when I reached in my engineering days, Calculators have left little utility and replaced by its grand daddy Computer. I do needed calculators during examination times but Orpat was more than enough. So now when my Calculator days are well over, I tried my hands on another Casio product and found my affiliation with Casio Watches.
There are 3 Japanese brands namely Seiko, Citizen, and Casio which are the pillars of Japanese Watch Industry just like Japanese Bike Industry is all about Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki. Since this is not a comparative study (neither do I have enough knowledge) I will refrain myself comparing the mighty giants which at one point of time had almost cannibalized Swiss Watch Industry. Just look at some firsts by these BIG 3.
Seiko:- Now famous for its Spring Drive movement, Seiko was the first company in the world to introduce World’s first production Quartz Watch named Astron way back in the year 1969.
Citizen:-Now famous primarily for its Solar powered Ecodrive series, Citizen Released Exceed Gold, the world’s first quartz watch with a movement less than 1mm thick.
Casio:-Now famous for its G-Shock series, Casio Released first combination clock-calculator way back in 1974Coming back to Casio, it has a uniqueness in a way that it never was or is a Pure Watch company. They are highly diversified into Calculators, Musical Instruments, Digital Cameras, Electronic Dictionaries, etc. and still they are as good as others in Watch building.
Casio has always put its focus into digital and analog-digital watches and hence functionality more than the pure time keeping. The only company that remotely comes to their competition in the digital business is Timex. No body can mix analog and digital time display better than them. Their portfolio consists of :-
Data Bank Series:- Moderately Priced Toy like appearance with a multitude of functions. Basically Pure Digital Watches (Costs around 1.5 k to 2.5 k)
Edifice:- Mid Priced, Stainless Steel Body with lot of functions including World Time, Alarm, Chronograph, Generally Analog or Ana-Digital Display (Costs around 5 k to 8 k)
G-Shock:- Mid to High Priced, Plastic as well as Stainless Steel Body primarily one of the toughest watch in business, Generally Analog or Digital Display (Costs around 4 k to 10 k)
Protrek:- High Priced Outdoor Plastic Watches with functions like Compass, Altimeter, Barometer, Thermometer and what not. Generally Digital Display (Costs around 15k to 18 k)
Sheen:- Ladies Stainless Steel Watches. Basically fashion watches.
Besides these series there are standard Casio watches which are nothing but like normal analog or Ana-digital watches with standard time keeping features.
Coming to my particular model, it is a rectangular shaped Stainless Steel Casio Edifice which goes by the name EFA 123. That reminds me that Casio is one of the very few watch manufacturer which still uses model numbers for promotion which associates Casio watches as Sporty Watches. Edifice EFA is a Ana-Digital watch which at first glance looks out of the planet because of its very unusual Analog display.
The Analog display is a a very tiny one located in the right hand corner of the watch display which is somewhat uncomfortable to read at first glance (Look at the picture attached). Repeated exposure of the display though makes you comfy afterwords. The bottom is occupied with Digital display and the left hand corner is basically settings of Analog Hands, World Time, Stop Watch and Alarm. There are 4 hard press buttons for changing the settings (2 on each side). The watch also has LED facility but it is bit weak as the entire display is not illuminated which makes time difficult to read. Timex Indiglo feature is much better in this aspect. Finally, Casio designs are such that either you like them or hate them. There is truly no middle way and I like them a lot.