G-Shock Goes Multi-Colored With New Titanium GMWB5000TR-9

G-Shocks. Stealth black resin cases. Waterproof enough to shoot from a nuclear submarine’s torpedo tube and robust enough to survive the impact. No frills, no fuss, just the time and a friendly ‘beep’ when you need it.

Given this utility background, you may be wondering what on earth Casio are doing with the GMWB5000TR-9. For a start, it’s titanium – or, at least, a type of titanium alloy (more on that later).  And it’s about as stealth as Randy Rainbow at a cocktail party. The main case is mirror-finished, ion-plated (IP) gold with the band showing links in a splendid rainbow of silver, gold, blue and pink. Even the buttons mirror the colours of the bracelet. 

That titanium case may look different, but it’s every bit as hardcore as the standard G’s resin offering. It’s made from a titanium alloy called ‘TranTixxii’, developed by the Nippon Steel Corporation back in the early 1990s. Saying Nippon Steel know a bit about working with metals is like saying Joe Satriani plays a bit of guitar. They’ve used ‘Tran Tixxii’ in everything from the world’s first underwater drift sea ice observatory to Dubai skyscrapers so it has something of a pedigree. It’s just as light as ‘normal’ titanium, but twice as hard and mirror-polishable. Now, working with Casio for the last six years, Nippon Steel have turned it into a watch case and band.

Robustness and scratch-resistance established, you’re perhaps wondering about the shock resistance of a hard metal rather than a more compliant resin case. Casio have got around the potential problem with an inner resin shock absorber, so your titanium-cased G is still perfectly usable as a Sherman tank engine mount.

Water resistance is also uncompromised at the same 20 bar as many other Gs. But where cheaper (and, to be fair, most Gs are cheaper than this one) use four screws to hold the caseback on, the GMWB5000TR-9 has a rather smarter screw-down affair. It’s diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated too so it’s happy shrugging off scrapes and scratches.

The module inside this special case will be familiar to most G aficionados. It has all the usual functions; 39 timezones, a 1/100th second stopwatch, an alarm for every working day of the week, a timer, coffee maker, PacMan game, geiger counter – you get the idea. But you can also Bluetooth this one to your ‘phone. It’ll also check the local radio timing station’s signal six times a day to make sure you never have an excuse for being late again.

If you fancy something a little more understated but still titanium, there’s always the GMW-B5000TB-1ER – if you can even find one. These new Gs may not be cheap ($1,700 for the multicoloured and limited edition GMWB5000TR-9) but they’re flying off the shelves and selling on auction sites for more than list price.

It looks as though Casio have pulled off something that would have been almost unthinkable back in 1983; the G-Shock has shouldered its way onto the luxury shelf. This is not though, by any manner of means, yer standard luxury watch, it’s more like The Terminator in a tuxedo. G-Shock.