Casio G-SHOCK Move GBD-H2000 review: More than just a rugged watch
Casio G-SHOCK Move GBD-H2000 review: More than just a rugged watch
The iconic G-SHOCK watch has been around 40 years and this model offers competition to Garmin, Suunto, COROS, and others in the GPS sports watch market
Hyperdrive Hits
3/5 Medals of Yavin: If you love G-SHOCK watches and want one that integrates GPS and heart rate then this may appeal to you. There are other better GPS sports watches for the price though for everyone else.
Light weight, yet rugged design
Solar-assisted charging for time
Partnership with Polar for data analytics
Intro
Wearables has been a major focus of my reviews for the past couple of years and I typically wear a watch on each wrist because there is so much out there to test. A few months ago I was looking for brands other than Garmin, Polar, Suunto, Amazfit, and COROS and came across Casio G-SHOCK watches.
None seemed to offer as much as I was looking for, but then I saw Casio announced the G-SHOCK GBD-H2000 and I immediately sent a request to evaluate the watch. I owned a few G-SHOCK models in the past and thought it would be awesome to wear a G-SHOCK that had a GPS receiver, heart rate monitor, and some basic smartwatch functionality.
For the past month I have been wearing the H2000-1A, black and orange model, and with a few improvements in the smartphone application I could definitely wear it and be quite satisfied. However, it’s a bit pricey at $399 and to be honest there are better options available for GPS sports watches.
Rating:
As explained in my palmsolo’s Refresh Rating Scale post, I’m awarding the Casio G-SHOCK GBD-H2000 three (3) Medals of Yavin. If it was priced at $300 or less, then I would likely give it a rating of 4 and if the smartphone application was updated to support syncing to Apple Health, Google Fit, and/or Strava then it would definitely earn a strong 4 rating.
The Good and the Bad
Despite all of the internal testing and trials, it’s rare to find a perfect product. Reviewers tend to push things to the limits and find unique situations where things may not perform perfectly.
Pros
G-SHOCK styling and rugged good looks
Biomass bezel and band, carbon reinforced fiber back
200m water resistance, shock resistant, durable
Partnership with Polar for data analytics
Customizable displays for exercise monitoring
Cons
Pricey at $399
No syncing to third party services, GPS data locked in Casio Watches
Small display
Limited to eight activities
Experiences
Hardware and watch interface
It wasn’t clear if I was going to get a chance to try out the H2000 so when I opened up the brown cardboard box and saw there was one packed inside I was pretty excited. I pulled out the retail package and dug in to find the watch. My first impression was that it was truly a G-SHOCK model with the rugged bold features and I loved the orange highlights.
I was stunned at the light weight, just 63 grams, of the watch since I typically wear big watches weighing 70 to 82 grams so the H2000 felt light. It is thick at 19.4mm, but looks and feel good on my average sized wrists.
The supple band is made of biomass plastic and has a huge number of loops so the watch will fit any wrist. The charging cable has a clip form factor to snap on the watch while solar can be used to power the time. The heart rate sensor is centered on the back.
The viewable area of the display is pretty small at just about 25 mm while the watch measures 59.6 x 52.6 mm. There are five physical buttons on the watch, three on the left and two on the right. The upper and lower left buttons are used to scroll up and down through the options on the display with the center left button serving as the enter/select button.
The top right button is for the light while the bottom right button moves you back one level in the menus.
The G-SHOCK H2000 is first and foremost a watch so the watch face is always showing by default. Pressing the top left or bottom left button moves you through various widgets and you can have up to 16 ready to go. These include heart rate, blood oxygen level, cardio status, nightly recharge, compass, altimeter, and more.
Selecting one of these widgets then lets you dive in and see more details related to that type of data. These cannot be setup on the watch, but must be selected in the Casio Watches app and then synced to the watch.
If you want to use the watch to track an activity, then simply press the center left enter button to open the activities you have loaded on the watch. The H2000 supports up to eight activities, including walking, running, biking, gym workout, trail running, pool swimming, open water swimming, and interval timer. For exercise like my indoor rowing I simply selected gym workout to track my heart rate.
Casio Watches smartphone application
At first I was extremely impressed with the Casio Watches smartphone application since it has a ton of settings and options that can be setup on the phone and then sync over to the watch. For example, you can completely customize the in activity displays for the various activities so that you can see the data that is most important to you while you workout.
You can set target alerts, heart rate zone alerts, GPS interval frequency, auto lap, auto pause, pool length, and more. This is pretty impressive for a G-SHOCK watch.
Smart alarms can be setup to wake you during your lightest phase within a certain number of minutes of your desired wake time. You can even use your H2000 to help you find your phone.
Casio partnered with Polar to analyze the data collected by the watch so when you go view the Lifelog display on the smartphone you can see the details of your outside activity, running index (aka VO2 Max), cardio load, calories burned, and more.
Polar sleep tracking intelligence is present with Nightly Recharge data, nervous system status, and then all of your sleep stage details. It’s pretty impressive data, but it cannot be edited and I found the sleep tracking to be quite different than the results from my WHOOP and other watches. I’m not sure if the thickness of the watch and my sleep positions is messing up the sleep data or what, but I did not find the results to be reliable.
The most significant issue that I have with the Casio Watches app is that all of the data collected by the H2000 lives in the Casio Watches app. There is no ability to sync to Apple Health, Google Fit, Samsung Health, or third party apps like Strava. I use data collected on a number of watches for training purposes, to run trend reports, and to save/collect over the years.
GPS, heart rate, and fitness performance
Five GNSS satellite services are supported on the watch with three measurement intervals present in the Casio Watches app. These include high, normal, and long. Battery life is impacted with the high option, but I like to be accurate and had this selected most of the time.
Since you cannot export the data to plot the results on the same graph, I had to visually check the track shown in the app. Results were pretty close and when I looked at the overall distance things matched up pretty well for GPS tracking.
When it comes to heart rate tracking, the average and maximum heart rate results from the H2000 were quite a bit higher than my other watches and chest strap. Unfortunately, external sensors are not able to be connected to the G-SHOCK H2000 so if you are looking for detailed heart rate tracking then you may not have that here with this watch.
Specifications
Specifications alone don’t mean much, but they are useful for comparing similar devices and checking that you are getting value for your money.
Materials: Biomass plastic, glass, and fiber-reinforced polymer
Durability: 200m water resistance and shock resistant
GNSS: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS
Connectivity: Bluetooth
Dimensions: 59.6 x 52.6 mm and 63 grams
Colors: Black/orange and black/lime green/pink
Bottom Line
Using the watch in “watch mode” with the heart rate sensor off then you should be able to go about two months between charges. Given that the heart rate tracking isn’t currently that great and the watch is a bit big to sleep comfortably with it, then you may want to turn off this option. You can also select power save mode and use the watch as just a watch for months.
In high accuracy GPS tracking mode, you should get about 14 hours of GPS tracking with long mode providing about 19 hours maximum. In typical use with run tracking via GPS, heart rate tracking, and sleep tracking, I experienced about a week between charging the watch.
The Garmin Instinct Crossover seems to be similar in rugged looks and basic functionality as the G-SHOCK H2000 with the same price. However, the Garmin watch provides a LOT more capability when it comes to sports and health/wellness tracking with a fantastic smartphone application and ecosystem.
People who are interested in this watch have to be Casio G-SHOCK fans and that’s just fine. It is a very capable watch and sometimes having a watch you love that reliably tells the time is worth the price.
G-shock always look ruggedly cool but lack features to match. At this price, a Forerunner 255 and a rugged bezel cover seems like a much better value.