The Casio G-Shock GWG one thousand-1A3 Mudmaster – a chief contender for the world’s hardest, and most sensible watch, however one which additionally seems to be like a chilly struggle-period mission management pc bay was squeezed along with an industrial-grade trash compactor after which sliced vertically.
It’s engaging in the identical means that early Apollo area shuttles and Belaz dump vans are engaging – every an achievement in design and functionality, however by no means in peril of profitable any magnificence contests. However all that congeniality is an integral slice of the Casio G-Shock Mudmaster, whose distinctive construct high quality and wealth of genuinely helpful options are a boon for anybody who insists on getting – and retaining – their arms soiled. 
To completely perceive the Casio G-Shock Mudmaster’s wildly artistic design and respect its function set, it helps to know the place the “Grasp” delineation is juxtaposed within the G-Shock universe. This “ana-digi” collection is the apex of the “Grasp of G” assortment, which accommodates three elemental nodes: earth (Mudmaster), sky (Gravitymaster), and sea (Gulfmaster). There’s a stripped-down, companion mannequin for every of those watches within the “Skilled” vary, which incorporates the likes of the Rangeman, Frogman, Gulfman and Mudman. It ought to come as little shock that the purely digital Skilled vary is a bit more extensively recognized and distributed, because of their slimmed-down instances (by comparability), core function units, and no-nonsense execution – design language that is definitely favored when discretion is paramount.
This can be a notably necessary distinction relating to figuring out the viewers for this watch, as a result of delicate, the Casio G-Shock Mudmaster just isn’t. Granted, it comes loaded with character and busting at its resin seams with a slew of cool options, however the stuff that I genuinely respect — the loopy-correct radio-managed timekeeping, the ABC features, and the slick world time leaping hour hand – all appear to run the danger of being solely overshadowed by the watch’s wearability. Granted, it ain’t exhausting to overshadow a lot of something with a watch of this measurement – the straightforward act of bringing it to bear runs the danger of inflicting a photo voltaic eclipse beneath my arm. Hell, even these wrist photographs needed to be taken from a digital camera positioned in a second-story window, however I digress.
Kidding apart, in the event you break down the laundry record of main features constructed into the Casio G-Shock GWG one thousand-1A3 Mudmaster, you may discover it bears a hanging resemblance to a different business-main ABC watch, the G-Shock Rangeman – a heavy favourite on the PX amongst precise servicemen. It virtually begs the query: if Casio has one of the best surroundings-proof know-how defending its business-main photo voltaic-powered timekeeping modules, how come they will’t put their instances on a food regimen to construct the last word army watch? The extra discrete Rangeman comes shut, because it’s fitted with the identical third-era “Triple Sensor,” nevertheless it lacks the ana-digi’s multi-tasking capabilities and the added environmental safety of the G-Shock Mudmaster.
It’s to not say the Japanese model isn’t succesful – it’s simply that doing so would undermine a lot of the attraction of a G-Shock itself, whose overt “G-Shock-ness” means that merely wanting the half is half the battle in terms of surviving the harshest environments on the planet. And right here’s the place the Mudmaster delivers in spades. Its chunky bezel and resin strap are affixed to the case with giant hex screws, punctuated betwixt by a collection of outsized buttons, which have a textured, hobnail floor that look as if they might move for audio system on some type of future steampunk radio gadget. If truth be told, they’re satisfying, tactile targets for even the stubbiest of gloved fingers, making the operation of toggling features, activating the twin-LED backlight at 6:00, beginning or stopping the flyback chronograph, or flipping from a UTC timezone to house time a breeze.
Even the rubberized screw-down crown might be manipulated with driving gloves on – a feat in and of itself. True to G-Shock type, the dial is about as busy as a New York Metropolis switchboard, however it’s additionally a textbook instance of utilizing numerous contrasts to handle a transparent hierarchy of data. Fitted with a glare-proofed sapphire crystal to maximise sharpness, numerous textures, colours, and depths are all employed to show a wealth of data at only a look – there whenever you want it, gone when you do not. From the chunky L-formed luminous hourly indices and extremely-crisp LCD show, right down to the photo voltaic array on the floor of the dial itself, the entire package deal is numerous enjoyable to take a look at, and extra enjoyable to play with, as you flip between the watch’s eight main options, indicated by the skeletonized yellow indicator at 10:00.
I shouldn’t even fake to assume that a G-Shock with all of the trimmings would ever be small, because the model hangs its hat on eschewing discretion and overbuilding its instances with legendary aplomb. A superb portion of that measurement could be attributed to 2 of the protecting measures that lend the watch its namesake: firstly, the burly, outsized crown and its heavy-obligation gaskets that seal out the ingress of dust or water – as much as 200 meters of the latter. And secondly, there’s Casio’s “Alpha Gel,” a gentle, silicone-based mostly dampening compound which is packed across the motion module to guard it from injury on account of highly effective shocks or extended vibrations.
One other particular countermeasure on the Casio G-Shock Mudmaster consists of the “Robust Motion” designation, which signifies that the analog palms on the watch can routinely re-align themselves within the occasion of a shock highly effective sufficient to de-couple them. This safety, mixed with the watch’s photo voltaic-powered battery and “Waveceptor” know-how which routinely synchs to time-broadcasting radio alerts from one in every of six atomic clocks worldwide, means it actually by no means wants adjusting or a battery change. If there ever have been a real contender for an finish-of-the-world watch, the Mudmaster could be as shut because it will get.
