My First Digital Casio is a DW-290

This article is a transcript of a video that you can watch by clicking the thumbnail below. Hence, certain statements may not make sense in this text form, and watching the video instead is recommended.

Transcript

Now, the DW290 isn’t a perfect watch by any means, and as a matter of fact, it’s not even a G-Shock, but it’s as close as you can get to a G-Shock on a regular Casio digital watch. Also, it has no solar charging, multi-band radio reception, world time, or multiple alarms.

Then why go with the DW290, you’d ask? Well, not because it was featured in one of the most popular action movies out there.

To me, this design, even being over 30 years old in 2025, was the best looking among the ones I shortlisted, the most affordable, and came with a few unique features that the others did not provide, at least at that price. Two of those features are the EL Backlight, which frankly made the decision easier, and the other is the flashing alarm. It also did not have any variants, so I didn’t have to lose my appetite over looking for the best variant for me and still live in fear of missing out on some other cool variation that I could have gotten, unlike the 2100 series.

My only super minor gripe with this watch is the battery anxiety as the EL backlight consumes more power than the LED on later models, and the only source of power when the battery is depleted would be a new battery.