Purchased as a congratulatory retirement gift for my brother, I keep wearing it around the house. If I can't control myself I'm going to have to purchase him a new one rather than give him a "used" present. Following is my Mudman experience.

ARRIVAL: Pulled it out of the box and it was already set up for my time zone (EST). The watch battery level window indicated that the watch was at full charge. It had last hacked to Ft. Collins seven weeks prior and it was eight seconds fast. I set the time zone to CST time (my brother's time zone) and it hacked to Ft. Collins at 00:04 on the next morning. It has synched at the first opportunity on each subsequent morning.

PERFORMANCE: This was a quick run-through to check that the various functions were operating. Everything checked out perfectly. The time display is significantly larger than my 6900 series watches and marginally larger than my 5600 series watches. This is important for my 65-year-old eyes. I had imagined that the 5-eyed monster above the time display would be more intrusive, but it doesn't take up as much space as it appears. That having been said, I have no idea exactly why it couldn't be minimized and the time display made larger. Many things remain mysterious to me.

WEARABILITY: The Mudman is incredibly comfortable to wear. Part of this is that the band happens to "synch" to my wrist perfectly. I have a slender 6.5" wrist and (preferably) wear a band at 6.75". With this tolerance the nubs perform their function of keeping the surface area of the back of the watch to one's wrist to a minumum and the band doesn't pinch hair (especially on a glabrous wrist like mine). The watch is quite light, barely weighing more than my 5600 series watches.

BAROMETRIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY: The nominally extra effort to press the buttons is far outweighed by Mudman's resistance to the elements. Persons who work with these watches will appreciate this quality. For others, who bemoan this minor inconvenience, I would ask, "Madam, does your husband wear a watch?"

FINALLY, A QUERY: Why isn't the GW9010 readily available in the U.S. as it is in the UK (at exorbitant prices)? C'mon, Casio, is the stockpile of Multi Band 5s in the U.S. so great that you can't send the GW9010s here? Shame on you.

I hope everyone enjoys their Casios as I enjoy mine. Regards, --Ron