The Casio Rangeman GPR-B1000 is worth a distinct conclusion. Even if my opinion of it is a mixed affair…

G-Shock is all about inner (construction) values transporting a certain attitude to the outside. A bit fashion and “enclothed living”, an appreciation of extreme technology, and a bit of a statement about the wearer of such a timepiece…

In other words: A G-Shock, and especially a Master of G like the Casio Rangeman GPR-B1000, is not the watch bought by anyone just looking at the uses of the watch’s functions.

Fashion Aspects

Looking at it from the perspective of “You are what you wear”, I find the Casio Rangeman rather appealing.

The watch transports toughness the way hardly any other sports or outdoor watch I have recently tried out can do it.

While many a person has recently called for a  sports watch that fits just as easily into an office, the Rangeman fits more onto a Jocko Willink: Up and training by 4:30 am and not interested in any blabbering.

The watch’s construction alone is interesting to view and admire.

Functional Aspects, Over All

In its basic functions, the Rangeman is nicely usable.

The way it works, with its five buttons and the scroll wheel of the central button in crown position, is not always ideal, but usually very nice to use and nicely different from other watches.

Of course, these basic functions – time, alarm, world time, stopwatch and countdown, ABC sensor – could be had much cheaper. But this is certainly not what this watch is about.

Functional Aspects, GPS

Like I made clear in my extra-entry on the Rangeman’s GPS and navigation, this special feature is this watch’s weak spot.

The GPS tends to be slow and doesn’t show whether it has reception or not until it has succeeded or failed. Routes transferred to the watch are not well usable, as the zoom is not detailed enough. Route recordings stored in the app cannot be exported.

These problems are all the sadder as they would be rather easy to solve and as they take away from a watch which would otherwise – especially for its likely intended audience – be quite attractive.

This would be particularly noticeable in another of the special features we have not yet talked much about, the solar-assisted charging:

Solar-Assisted Charging

Aside from the special construction, as a Casio G-Shock Master of G watch, the Casio Rangeman GPR-B1000 would also be something really special in terms of how it’s charged.

Up to now, I always had to laugh a little when people called for solar-charging for GPS watches. They use way too much battery to make that worthwhile.

Now, I cannot say that/if the Rangeman would run 20 hours on “high rate” GPS (and 33 hours with “normal” GPS). I did use its GPS for a few hours each, though, and it only lost a little of its charge from that.

In all, I had only charged the Rangeman full one time, immediately after receiving it, using its wireless charging cradle and an electric outlet. After that, I had only ever let it charge itself through its solar charging, leaving it lying on a table getting some light in between GPS and everyday use. And that was always enough for a constant full charge (except, of course, immediately after hours of GPS use).

Really interesting and cool to see, that.

Even according to Casio, it takes four hours of solar charging on a bright day with 50,000 lux of light to get enough charge for one hour of GPS use. Even that would be a whole lot better than other GPS devices without solar charging which would just be dead once their battery runs out if there is no wall outlet or power bank (and the right cable) around…

So, Then…

All in all, then, the Casio Rangeman GPR-B1000 is quite interesting for people who are looking for a tough watch with a very special appeal.

As GPS – and that would be its standout feature, after all – it is only of limited use, for those who do not need real navigation and have enough value from the tracks they recorded ending up in the Casio app only.

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