Whenever I write about watches I fear that many of you will be uninterested in such a niche topic, and then I look at the stats for the site and see that the top 20 articles, ever, are all watch articles. So here I am again writing about a watch.

The ABL-100 range is a remarkable product and one that shows what can be done today for a very low price. At £69.90 in the UK you are getting a lot here and in the first few days of use I have been surprised at what it can do. Here are some of the highlights-

• It is well sized and should fit almost any wrist. I have a large wrist and it looks fine despite being a smaller watch than what I would normally wear. Square watches always wear bigger and in this case the dimensions feel right for the case design.
• The bracelet is excellent. It doesn’t pull off hairs like some others do and it catches the light really well, similar to a Tissot PRX.
• You can download the Casio Watches app which lets you synchronise the exact time with your phone and adjust many of the settings on the watch directly from within the app.
• Within the app is a fitness section which shows you your steps, this watch has a built-in accelerometer that does a strangely impressive job. In a test it came within 100 steps of my Apple Watch when just over 6,000 steps were taken. A Fitbit Luxe on the same measurement was over 800 steps out…
• Your steps can be synchronised with Apple Health, but remember that you are only getting steps here although within the app you get the following which is taken from the Casio site- ‘Distance, speed, pace, etc., are calculated by GPS on smartphones or accelerometer., Training Function- Display of distance, speed, pace, and other calculated values based on accelerometer, auto/manual lap times, Auto Pause, target alert setting (time, calories burned) on/off, training display customization (elapsed time, distance, pace’.
• There is a timer, 5 daily alarms, countdown, dual time (this works especially well), stopwatch, worldtime and everything else you would expect on most Casio watches.
• The battery gives 2 years of life- no charging here and when it does run out all you need to do is unscrew the back and pop a new one in. Save yourself some money and don’t get a jeweller to do it.

And that’s about it. It is a wonderful design which will take you back to the 80’s/90’s and at only 60 grams you will barely notice that you are wearing it.

It is one of the best value watches available today and if you need is basic step tracking there is a genuine bonus in wearing it. Few fitness trackers have no practical impediments at all, but this one is seamless in use and feels like a normal watch in daily use.

The only thing I would advise is to avoid the gold version- it’s an awful shade of Trump-ian gold… Also, in poor lighting indoors you will need to use the backlight as it can be hard to read.

Categories: Articles, Fitness, Fitness Trackers, Watch Reviews, Watches