I’ll be completely honest with you – I don’t pay much attention to this Casio. It’s not a watch that I take photos of frequently either – in fact, I struggled to find a pic with it on my wrist – that’s why I’ve put a candid shot of me taken by my wife on our last vacation. This Casio isn’t a watch I know particularly much about – I had to look up the spec sheet just for the purposes of this review. This Casio ADS800WH is not a watch that has a place in my watch box – it’s usually thrown somewhere around the house, where it gets just enough sun to keep it going. It’s a watch that I don’t even really consider as a piece of my collection. But this is the watch I always throw on when I need a watch and I don’t wanna worry about it. And it’s probably the watch that’s seen most adventures out of all other watches.

This Casio ADS800WH was an impulse buy at a local store – I noticed the 200m WR, the fact that it was solar-powered and it fitted my wrist reasonably well – and for less than 30 bucks, that’s all I needed to know. Now, I have a somewhat irrational aversion towards solar-powered watches. See, in my mind, a mechanical watch could potentially last you a lifetime. The same goes for a decent quartz piece – after all, there’s an abundant supply of batteries on the market. But solar watches are a different story – both the solar panel and the lithium battery deteriorate over time and once one of those things is gone, replacing it could be in the range from pain in the ass to impossible. And I don’t like the thought of spending my money on something that could go bust in 5 or 10 years – I’d much rather put it towards a mechanical piece. However, I had no objection to spending 30 bucks on this one.

Back to the watch in question. It is, for all intents and purposes, a G-Shock, but without the branding on the dial. It comes with all the features you’d expect from a G – resin case and strap, 200m WR, world-time, 5 alarms, countdown timer, stopwatch, a LED backlight and even some lume on the hands. Plus, it’s solar-powered (which, at the time of the purchase, wasn’t a frequently seen feature on G-Shocks, at least not at the affordable end of the spectrum). It also has a power-saving function (the display goes blank in the dark). The size, as all G aficionados will tell you, is completely irrelevant, since they all wear much smaller than the figures would suggest (it’s 54.5×51×11.3mm).

This watch has been absolutely everywhere with me – in lakes and oceans, on hikes and mountain tops, weekend trips and vacations – and has never missed a beat. Having in mind that it’s one of the oldest pieces I still own and the abovementioned heliophobia, I’ve spent the last couple of years just waiting for it to break down. I occasionally browse online with a replacement in mind, expecting its demise at any moment. But the damn thing just keeps going. It has a few dings on the case, the resin on the strap is worn on the hole I use to wear it, but other than that – it’s perfectly fine! It’s a watch that has clearly saved me some money over the years on potential replacements and who knows? – it may be the watch that’ll cure me of my solar anxieties. From what I was able to gather, this one is still available and it’s still considerably less than the solar Gs – at least the ana-digi ones. So if you dig the looks and want a watch that can be used and abused without worries, look no further. This little Casio ADS800WH solar bastard just refuses to die!