I Will Never Quit the G-Shock, the Best Everyday Watch Money Can Buy

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It all started with a slapshot. In 1983, at the tail end of the quartz crisis that saw the mechanical watch industry go into free fall, Japanese electronics brand Casio—with its lead designer, Kikuo Ibe—released the first-ever G-Shock. While not the first tool watch in history, the original G-Shock was an innovator in that it took something as delicate as a watch and packaged it in a silhouette built to withstand anything. Literally, anything. Even a hockey player's slapshot, per the brand's iconic television commercial.

While skeptics saw it and said, "Pfft, yeah right," Casio really did build a tank of a watch. For decades, G-Shock watches have been the watch preferred by soldiers, firefighters, and police due to their physical toughness and accurate quartz timekeeping. In October 2017, Casio took the Guinness World Record for the "Heaviest Vehicle to Drive Over a Watch," which is a real category, after a 25-tonne truck rolled over a G-Shock in Kodama, Japan. Afterward, the damn thing kept on ticking.

G-Shock's modern icon, the DW5600, is a piece that Esquire enthusiastically signs off on given how it functions in all the ways you want a good watch to work, and looks great for just about any casual affair. You might not wear it to a wedding, but you won't be late for the ceremony if you've got a G-Shock on hand.

Typically, the origins of must-have accessories aren't as compelling as the accessories themselves. In watches, though, there's a handful of legendary stories. G-Shock was born because for one man, his worst fears about his watch came true. In 1981, Casio engineer Kikuo Ibe bumped into a fellow pedestrian, which left the delicate mechanical watch his father gifted him in pieces.

That disaster sparked in Ibe a desire to create the world's first "triple 10" watch: 10 years of battery life, 10 bar water resistance, and 10 meters of fall resistance. Later on during development, he had a eureka moment when he saw children playing with a rubber ball and realized that the center of the ball is untouched during bounce shock. By 1983, the first-ever G-Shock, the DW-5000C, was sold for the first time.

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Over the ensuing 40-plus years, the DW-5000C evolved into the DW-5600 of today, the latter being the watch that earned G-Shock its Guinness world record. The brand's decades of growth have afforded G-Shock to expand its catalog to include an overwhelming amount of models, variants, collaborations (like with John Mayer), and yes, pricier pieces with solar batteries and other smartwatch-like bells and whistles.

But the base DW5600 is a legend, and it is by no means "basic" either. While it bears a black square face shape and matte black resin exterior (with a matching rubber wrist band) similar to its '83 ancestor, the DW-5600 is a monster for modern times. It boasts improved shock resistance—here's YouTuber Teddy Baldassare drop testing a G-Shock from 40 meters out of a helicopter—and 200 meters of water resistance. The newer DW-5600 also comes with an LED backlight that makes the piece readable at night. Lots of watches do that too, of course, but G-Shock covers the basics and excels while doing so.

To say nothing of its other features: a built-in stopwatch, a timer, alarms, a calendar up to the year 2099, all with accuracy of plus and minus 15 seconds a month. All this means: It's a digital watch with all the stuff you want a digital watch to have. Though other digital watches have these same features too, they only have them because G-Shock mastered it long ago.

Realistically, you don't need all the protection the DW5600 offers. If you're falling 40 meters out of a helicopter, you've got bigger problems than your watch still ticking. But bumps and dings are inevitable, and it's good to know you're not wearing something too precious on your wrist. And if you're a watch guy, it's fun to obsess over specs, the history, and how bulletproof (not quite) this watch really is.

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The secret beauty of the DW5600 few watch enthusiasts will point out is its wardrobe versatility. While a sports watch at heart, G-Shock emerged as a digital watch in the early 1980s; while not on the bleeding edge even then, digital watches were a domain occupied by tech-obsessed high school nerds. Recall Casio's other iconic digital watch of 1983: the Casio Databank, aka, the "Calculator Watch."

These days, geek is chic. In a time when everyone smartwatches straight from Star Trek, the retro-oriented aesthetics of a digital dumb watch like the DW5600 can lend some vintage flair to any casual outfit. In the 1990s and 2000s, G-Shock found a new audience among purveyors of cool, namely rap artists who gravitated towards the brand for their tough exteriors and low maintenance.

There are endless varieties of G-Shocks to choose from today; maybe there's another G-Shock that appeals to you personally. But the neutral matte black of the DW5600 is hard to beat for the cost. It goes with just about anything you can wear, with the obvious exclusion of formal suits and tailoring. Sweaters and chinos for cozy autumn afternoons? Board shorts and tank tops in the summer? Big boots and bigger coats during the deep freeze of winter? The DW5600 matches the vibe for all those moments.

If you think such an indestructible piece has an equally ruthless price tag, you're mistaken. The DW5600 retails for just $99 from Casio, while you can easily find it elsewhere for even cheaper. But in spite of that lean price tag, the DW5600 still carries weight as a piece no self-respecting horology nerd would dare sneer at. In a galaxy of Swiss Goliaths, there's one humble Japanese David that costs barely a fraction of them all, and still looks as great as the rest of them. It takes a beating better, too.

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Photographs by Florence Sullivan