Casio CA53WF Calculator Watch

As best as I can tell, it was last year that Casio released a rainbow panoply of its classic calculator watch. Up until then, it was only available in black, which remains available and no less iconic (Everett has one, and if that’s not enough of an imprimatur, I don’t know what is).

Living as we do on the bleeding edge of watch releases, the gang at Watch Clicker last month got it into our heads to buy one each of the rainbow releases. And were it not for our apparently not fearless Editor-in-Chief’s aversion to the white model, we’d have a full set on our hands. As it is, we acquired the blue, green, and red models. I opted for red, which appears to be the harder of the four to get (Casio doesn’t even have it on their site).

As no watch is beneath (or above) an honest review, herewith is a brief and brutal assessment of the Casio Databank CA53WF-4B.

Yeah, I put the Calculator Watch on a white leather strap. Wanna fight about it? Didn’t think so. As you can see above and below, the slim case with modest dimensions sits easily on the wrist. As you can also see above, legibility on the black LCD suffers at even slight angles.

Hugs the wrist like a drunk friend. You’ll need to be sober to swap the strap through the drilled lugs, though.

Look at the watch face there. Look close. Dust. Tons of dust. I’ve never had a watch on a plastic/rubber band where the face attracted more detritus than the strap. The negative display is cool, but as mentioned, creates legibility issues. And the lack of backlight means the watch turns into a useless bracelet in the dark.

The watch features two buttons on the side, one for cycling through the various functions (time>calculator>alarm>dual time>stopwatch), and one for setting various functions, which is almost impossible to push. All other subfunctions (start/stop, say) are operated with the calculator pad. I hope fingers are as nimble as the ones that assemble these watches.

Can you take this watch under or even near water? No one knows. All Casio has deigned to inform us is that the watch is indeed “Water Resistant.” Even the product page sheds no light on whether the Calculator Watch can handle a splash, a dive, or neither.

The strap is ultralight and comfortable–if you’ve ever worn a G-SHOCK strap, this one is infinitely more comfortable–but talk about a color matching failure. That resin case is crimson, while the band is obviously burgundy. Gross.

Most people don’t know this, but the branded clasp was Casio’s idea. All other brands are copycats and I encourage you to eschew their ersatz offerings. Below, a reminder that I had the audacity to put this thing on a white leather strap.

Final Thoughts

If you haven’t caught on by now, the Casio Calculator Watch is not a watch purchased for it’s functionality. If you want an easy-to-use, durable digital watch, buy a G-SHOCK. If you want a calculator, buy a calculator. The Casio Calculator Watch is and always has been a novelty that one gets for kicks.

As long as the watch has been offered, there have been better options for each of it’s functions. But at a certain point (everyone’s threshold is different) it’s easy to justify a purchase–watch or otherwise–just for the fun of it. The Casio Calculator Watch is a great example of that justification in action.

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More Images of the Casio CA53WF Calculator Watch