Casio MTP-1226 solar, two tone and different

Some ideas are revolutionary and change the world. Some ideas are not and you may wish they stepped aside and let better ones through. Some … they are not bad and in some cases are rather good ones, but it either not their time or they came into the world through the not so capable hands. I am going to present Casio MTP-1226 as fine example of these shades. It is good watch, just few clicks of been great.

As i already stated, I like day-date watches. It is a minimum convenience, style aside. As much as minimalist ones are pleasing, ability to tell day and date is very convenient. Technically there are many variations of this ability. Like I stated in introductory passage not all were created equal. I going to write next post about another shade of day-date variety. To set things straight from a beginning, I am telling plain and simple , what for me the best possible way to tell day and date is single window at 3 o’clock position , 9 o’clock or some other horizontal but aesthetic position. Long time ago, some folks here and there came with better one: we put LCD on the bottom/top of the watch and you can have it all. Day, date, alarm, stopwatch… limitless. It’s done, even Bretling bought Japanese Miyota movements to bank on this success in 80-s-90-s. You may ask “Why?”? Why I am telling about un-related watches? I am carefully coming to Why this watch looks like it looks.  There are no limits to how it can be made in our time. The question is why it made the way it is.

Casio is trying to emulate these classic day-date watches with horizontal day-date window. You have small LCD screen in place of moving mechanical parts. Screen is capable of displaying time (could be any time since there is no hard wired connection between digital and analog components of the watch) , day-date and seconds-charge indicator.  Crown positioned at 4 o’clock and also serves as digital part set button (you pull it to set digital watch).  Two buttons on 2 and 8 o’clock serve illumination/adjust value (2) and change mode/advance (8). Watch has perpetual calendar since you set year, day, month and that’s it. Analog time can stop, while digital time display works continuously regardless of crown position. It would have been nice to have alarm, but it not present. Nonetheless, watch has neat functional set: time/ dual time and perpetual calendar. It also has LED illumination and lume on the hands. This Casio has potential to be neat package with combination of old and new. It also looked great on the casio.com photos.

Casio MTP-1226 weights hefty 143 grams (some links removed from bracelet).  Two tone gold-steel with two textures give you three different surfaces mate and mirror polish silver and mirror polish gold. Bit busy, but placement of gold accents and changing size of the links give Casio interesting look.  Watch is thick. Way too thick for my taste. Thickness of the watch dictated by solar powered internals and LED illumination. Face of the watch is transparent glass (plastic) covering solar panel. LED illumination sits within it’s own transparent ring. Tapered minute marker bezel also adds to the watch thickness.  I wish it would have been done differently.

Hand and markers are polished gold with lume added. Lume is not the best , but considering pedestrian price of the watch and quality of the bracelet I don’t need to guess what kind of trade off was made. Polished gold works well if you look at the face of the watch at the angle. You can tell time in rather limited light. LED illumination is yellow-orange in tint and do not illuminate LCD screen or play nice with polished gold of the hands. Only lume covered portions of the hands can be seen in LED light, making with function of the watch less useful.  Best view of LCD is also angled, since it not most contrast blessed one out there. In many instances read out of day-date/time is rather washed and you will need to see the watch at more favorable angle.

Solar powered watches are nice, perpetual and I have nothing to add in this department. This feature is welcomed and works well. 100m water resistance is nice and more than adequate.

Style of MTP-1226 is not casual, not sport/y and not dress one. I would call it business casual and leave my judgement to remain untold.

So, what is good and what is bad with this Casio. Content is very good. Watch is functional, put new spin on classic success of day-date and add some welcomed additions of dual time, solar power, display languages and perpetual calendar. Envelop is not polished as you may like: readability suffers and illumination is rather lost case.  Thickness and bezel better suited for some “sport” oriented watch shift this Casio from dress watch to office companion watch.  In a way this watch is totally opposite to Seiko I described in previous post. While Seiko is timeless and delivers time first, Casio tries first to deliver it presence both in gold and weight…

 Both watches have place in the world. It is my personal wish for Casio to be more like Seiko.