my fishing watch - the Casio MDV-106
published : 2017.03.15
a review
Very simply; this watch is an entirely capable outdoors unit perfectly suited for fishing. It's big enough to see when your hands are busy, and its lume is bright enough to see in the dusk – when the fishing is best. Its water resistance is superb, and its rotating bezel serves as a great way of marking time to help you move on from a non-producing fishing spot. The dial is clear with white-and-silver indices standing out starkly on a pure black dial. The indices are well sized, unlike many dive watches, even though they're merely stamped into the dial and not separate markers applied to the dial. And with a steel case and screw-down case back, the body is rugged enough to withstand anything you're going to do to it.
Well; it's almost rugged enough to withstand anything. The watch has a flaw, as you might expect from something that you I was able to buy for $CA50. I'll get to the flaw in a moment, but first I want to stress what that price means. Canada is a land of mysterious mark-ups. At present, for instance, Timex has nothing on their site for less than $50. So whatever flaws I've found, let's keep the price in mind.
I'm writing this review at the three year mark, having worn it for 150 weekends plus any time when my $400 SARB033 wasn't suitable. That includes cleaning out a cottage crammed to the rafters with junk by my hoarder grandfather, building furniture, and many (many) fishing trips. The case and the bezel appear like new aside from an odd mark that looks like a defect in the paint application that can only be seen under direct and low-angle sunlight, so it's immaterial. Likewise, the case has a variety of abrasions so superfluous that again you have to play the case around under oblique and strong lighting – a pointless way of finding defects.
So it's well made. The bezel was always firm and pliant in its one-direction turning that I could confidently rely on it for timing my stays at one fishing haunt or another.
the flaw
Which brings me to the crystal. The crystal on this watch will scratch without you even knowing it's come into contact with something. I mean, it seemed at times like it was scratching from the suede work gloves I was wearing, or from being inside a nylon backpack. Again, I have to stress that despite the fact that I was wearing this watch as my beater, the case and bezel are in great shape but the crystal was so criss-crossed with glaring scratches that I couldn't always make out the time under daylight conditions. As my father put it, "They seem to make some watches with window-pane glass these days!"
addressing the flaw
My advice is to live with the scratched crystal.
I couldn't, and wound up with a very different watch. When the battery died, I had the watch sent away for inspection with the idea of replacing it.
This turned out to be a non-starter. The bezel and crystal are so firmly glued together that even in separating them, the crystal cracked. This happened not under my own clueless efforts but in the hands of the watch-maker to which the watch had been sent by the local watch/jewelry shop.
Hearing the news on the phone, I was tempted to ask them to throw the thing away and buy another. This was at about the 2 1/2 year mark for this watch. But two things occurred to me: if I were willing to go through it all again with another MDV-106, it was clearly a watch worth having; second, I wanted to see how long this watch would keep on ticking, especially with its one flaw presumably addressed with a new crystal. So I okayed the expense (materials only) and got my watch back with an obviously superior crystal. I've now worn the watch for another 27 weekends and a variety of successful fishing jaunts.
update 2020/11
The year 2020 being what it is, I've had some real losses so I won't overstate my disappointment when I nicked my watch on something and the crystal shattered. I've retired the watch after 6 1/2 years of service.
The good news is that once I was no longer wearing the thing, I was able to take it apart. Here's what I've learned.
straps for the MDV-106
The rubber strap that came with the watch clung to my skin, I replaced it with a one-piece NATO strap that was far more comfortable and every bit as suited to regular immersion in water while fishing. I've recently replaced the one-piece NATO strap with a two-piece, and heartily recommend the two-piece variety over the one-piece for this model. It's wide enough, at 43mm, to need a strap that will help it sit low on the wrist.
summing up
You can find plenty of watches with similar looks and quality at two or three times the price. But I've never seen anything similar to this watch at its price. I've always been pleased with the style and materials and size of this watch. Now I'm interested to see how long it lasts.
feedback
You take your life in your hands, writing product reviews. In 2000, for instance, I wrote a review of a personal organizer called the YO-520. I got comments on that for years – including numerous requests for help and even product support. I but I live for the thrill, so if I've written something that's gotten up your nose, let me know!
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Hello, Riley;
Obviously there aren't too many scavengers like T-Rex, that's true. There's a BBC video that you can watch on Youtube that amongst other things shows the developmental stages of the T-Rex and shows how they lost the serrated knife-like teeth as they aged. At the same time, their snouts shortened. It's basically looking like the older animals were full-time scavengers and not hunters.
http://youtu.be/IEndtU0GniQ
Here's one of the sources on (adult?) T-Rex being too heavy and having far too little muscle mass to run.
http://stanford.io/YloAZk
There's nothing out there about T-Rex having a poisonous bite other than pure conjecture. The only claims that have been made on that front were about Sinornithosaurus, but those claims have been contested.
http://bit.ly/12JqcfR
Thanks for writing!
Yo. Forgive me, but I think your opinions about both Al and His Highness are both hogwash. Bellowing brutes with no brains? Allosaurus was at least as smart as a crow and capable of strategic thinking. So was T. rex. I'm an Allosaurus nut myself, but I believe, apparently unlike yourself, in giving credit where it's due. If your kid likes T.rex, big deal: he's FOUR, for Heaven's sake! He's a KID! Let him be a kid! We're only young once, and then never long enough!
This made me smile. Do you have a link comparing Allosaurus intelligence to that of a crow? That's a huge reversal on anything I've ever read.
One of the interesting developments of the past few years is the possibility that many of the so-called species we've identified were really different forms of the same species at different stages in development.
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-adolescent-rex-unraveling-controversy-growth.html
It doesn't apply when comparing species from vastly different time periods, as we're doing, but I do find it amazing and fun that we're still learning so much.
Thanks for writing!
P.S. The kid's already 8 1/2. He claims to now have no preference between the two, but leans allosaurus.
Er, no, I don't have a link, but to be perfectly honest me and my twin brother did a lot of research of our own on Allosaurus (he's a T-rex nut) and, after watching the informative Jurassic Fight Club (which I highly recommend) we were wowed. An animal capable of strategic thinking HAS to be intelligent, don't you agree? T-rex was similarly intelligent: when you're the king of the killers in your environment, you don't need smarts, but if you're in a very competitive environment---and what preda
Jurassic Fight Club looks brilliant, thanks for passing that along. I agree that the Allosaurus looks like it would have been a nightmare for everything living at that time. I wonder if the dinosaurs would have simply carried on out-competing everything if that meteor hadn't come. Also, I wonder if maybe a mid-life T. Rex might have been a lot like an Allosaurus - apparently the T. Rex filled several niches during its life, taking on different forms as it matured.
P.S. I see your comment got clipped. I apologize for that, but if it's any consolation your comment led me to a discover a bug introduced while fixing the previous issue last week.
Whoops! Got the bug I hope. And about the meteor: dinosaurs were already on their last gasp when it hit. A million years before the big whammy there were 60 species of dino in T.rex's landscape; 900,000 years later this number had plummeted to 19, and by the time of the Chixulub event this had sunk to only nine. Bob Bakker blames the Asia-North America Species interchange, which also meant diseases were interchanged too. Epidemics like Ebola are a modern example of this. It should serve as a warning to us all.
Thanks for your comment, Benjamin. Poor dinosaurs, beset by all manner of challenges at the end.
Interesting hypoyhesis you have there! However I disagree and here's why... Tyrannosaurus rex was 4 m longer than Allosaurus And had a bite force of up to 3,300lbs. Also Tyrannosaurus rex Had thick serrated teeth that could cut through bone and it had an infectious, toxic bite that could kill an animal of infection within hours! What kind of scavenger has all those things? The only reason it looks like T-Rex is a scavenger in your article is because you have found a bad illustration of T-Rex and have taken advantage of it. P.S: I think it's great (although slightly strange and illogical) of you to think of something one million miles outside of the box!