For $300 you can get into G-Shock’s sophisticated G-Steel line with the newly released GM-2110D. This “Church Watch,” as I call it is totally clad in metal. The bezel is metal, the bracelet is metal, the indices are metal. The dial is available in 5 different colors, one of which is metal!
How about the watch’s case, is it metal? No. It’s plastic.
Before you metal heads walk away, understand this: the plastic case is how G-Shock keeps the price down. If you wanted a full metal experience, you need to pay $550 to purchase the GM-B2100, which has a metal case and screw down case back. Yea, you can feel the steel with that watch, but your wallet will feel it too. It costs $200 more than this one!
So every part you see on the new GM-2120D is polished metal. You know how zoomers say “No cap, fr fr”? Well, with this watch it’s “Yes, cap.” The plastic watch underneath is capped in a gleaming polished metal facade.
It’s counterintuitive, but plastic has advantages over metal in the way of shock resistance due to its plasticity and light weight. In fact, when Casio G-Shock engineers set out to design the first all metal G-Shocks, they had quite a challenge to meet the stringent durability requirements of the brand’s offerings, which are tested with a three story window drop.
So the GM-2110D is lightweight, cheaper, and has that finely polished look of metal all the way around your wrist. In the few days I’ve had it, I have enjoyed wearing it. I love the way it looks. So I recommend it as a classy looking, good value metal G-Shock watch.
Colors Galore
You have quite a selection of colors for the dial of the G-Shock GM-2120D. In addition to the Navy Blue which I got, there’s green, orange, light blue, and one that I call clear coat steel. So five in total.
I chose the Navy Blue because, well, that’s the one you chose. I posted a community poll on my YouTube channel for you guys to vote on what was the best color. Since YouTube only allows 4 selections on its polls I had all the candy colors face off to battle the Steel Clear Coat in the final round.
Navy Blue absolutely destroyed the candy colors. It took half the votes in the four way race!
In the championship round, I really thought of the Steel Clear as the final boss. Wrong! Navy Blue trounced this supposed top color by taking nearly three quarters of that vote.
Rise up, Navy Blue Crew
So Navy Blue is the undisputed fan favorite and I think my YouTube subscribers were onto something.
Navy Blue is a dark color, and as a result it offers a tremendous contrast to the metal indices and metal hands. Zoomers would say this watch face “pops.”
Each facet of the indices gleam at different angles. There’s a bevel to the hands that catch the light and the bezel has a concentric circular brushed pattern that causes the reflection to radiate from the center. The deep rich navy blue color really accentuates the light show of the metallic features of the GM2110D.
What do the other colors offer?
I don’t know. I may never know. The Navy Blue Crew was adamant that no other color was valid. They said Navy Blue is a real man’s color. When I said in a video that I have too much navy blue with all my pants and polos Darryl Woodberry commented, “There’s no such thing as too much navy blue. It’s an awesome color.”
There you go! If you’re waffling about what color to get, be a man. Get Navy Blue.
The Sunday Best Watch
When watches look this good, I call them “Church watches.” For the six other days of the week, I need an ultra-tough watch to stand up to the rigors of my filthy dirty work in the oil field. For me that’s the Mudman GW-9500. But on Sunday I clean myself up, dress myself up, and drag my buttocks off to church to thank God for another week of life.
I’d like my watch to match my efforts to look civilized at church. The Mudman looks out of place popping out from underneath the sleeve of my dress shirt. Add to that it may have some grimy mess lingering in his nooks and crannies, you can imagine how impractical it would be with formal wear. (think antiseize compound smearing on a cufflink.)
Not to mention that a watch has to actually fit under sleeves to begin with! Not all G-Shocks can. The Rangeman GPR-H1000 is a monstrously sized watch. Forget about it playing peekaboo under your sleeve. It’s sumo wrestling the cuff of your suit coat.
The huge selling point of G-Shock’s 2100 series watches is its diminutive stature. This particular metal clad 2100 derived watch stands less than half of an inch proud. That’s 11.9mm of height from your wrist. You’ll have no problem wearing it under any shirt. I guarantee — even that dress shirt that somehow shrank since the last time you wore it 15 years ago.
What’s the deal with closets? They are always shrinking clothes from our youth! Why else wouldn’t they fit anymore?
Here’s a detail on the bracelet that sets it apart from other steel bracelets in the G-Steel line of G-Shocks. No dots. These links are cleanly brushed all the way around.
What dots am I talking about? I don’t even know what they’re officially called or what purpose they served originally, but G-Shocks had pairs of cyndrilical indentations running down the side of the band since the days of vintage squares. When they introduced the metal square, the GMB5600, they kept them on the bracelet. On this new GM2110D, they are gone!
So the watch looks cleaner and sleeker. But you might not be able to drive it as far on the golf course. Was the purpose of those dots were to make the watch fly further like divots on a golf ball? I don’t know for sure. As I say, there’s only one way to find out.
Back to Basics
The heart of the watch is its module. The GM2110D is based on the original GA2100, which was a basic as a G-Shock ani-digi watch could be. There were the main analog hands, a day of the week subdial, and an LCD display nestled in the corner.
The next iteration of this watch line was the GA-B2100. The B stood for Bluetooth. It added that together with Tough Solar charging. On that series the subdial pointed to the function the watch was currently on, as well as a battery charge indicator. The day of the week was relegated the LCD subdial.
Those were the two main branches of what is officially called the 2100 series, and commonly called Casioak: The standard GA2100 derived and the solar bluetooth enabled GAB2100. There are many permutations of the 2100 but those are the two main branches.
When the series went to the full metal option in 2022 it was based on the GAB2100. As I mentioned earlier, the metal model was the GMB2100 and it retailed for $550.
For this new GM2120D we’re looking at, G-Shock went back over to the non-Bluetooth branch. While a lot of us are happy to see that pesky function gone, the solar charging has been taken away too!
I know, I know, sometimes you feel like you just can’t win. They never make the exact watch you want. But as a consolation, this battery, the SR726W X 2, should last about 3 years. And since there’s no need for a battery level indicator, the subdial is back to pointing at the day of the week. And let me remind you again the GM2110D is only $300.
Less is More
The module of the GM2110D is number 5611. It’s functions are main time, world time, stopwatch, countdown timer, and alarms. Yes, the standard fare.
It’s good to see that the stopwatch measures fractions of a second all the way down to 1/100. The timer can be set up to 24 hours which is also great to see since G-Shock has only included one hour timers on their super advanced new MIP smart connected watches.
As far as seeing the watch goes, you can press the light button to activate two LEDs. On LED illuminates the LCD subdial. The other LED shines on the analog hands. These LEDs are plenty bright. And they make the metal indices sparkle. So reading your watch at night is no problem.
And how about the lume? Let me just preface my assessment of the lume by reminding you that this is a G-Shock, not known for good lume. And on top of that, this is a budget minded offering, so they aren’t pushing the boundaries of their lume endurance.
Let me also remind you that you have TWO great LEDs available at the press of a single button. Do you really need good lume? C’mon, man, as Joe Biden would say. Lume?! Who in the current year needs or wants good lume. It’s just glow in the dark paint. LEDs are where it’s at. LEDs is what you should be asking about.
Ok you guys are still here asking about the lume.
The lume stinks. It doesn’t last long and the it’s just on the hands. There’s no lume on the indicies.
The Bracelet
Moving on to another weak point of the watch, let me tell you that I’m not impressed at all with the buckle that clasps together the metal bracelet.
It has locking jaws that secure the kingpin. These are trucking terms. I don’t know what the watch terms are for these features. I drive tractor tailer trucks. But anyways, the locking jaws are supposed torelease when you press two tabs. Ok? Well, I got them to release by pressing only one. So I don’t find the locking mechanism to be that robust and I don’t have much confidence in it.
One more thing I want to say.
The lug to lug on the 2100 series watches is small. So small in fact that I can’t comfortably wear a regular GA2100 watch because I am a big wrister. The GA2100 I have is the GA2100-BCE which has an extended Cordura fabric band and adapters. I also have a GAB2100-CT which has a similarly sized eco-cotton band and the same adapters. Both of them fit comfortably by the way. Read my comparison.
On the GM2110D, the metal bracelet attaches to a case that is the same dimensions as the regular plastic resin GA2100. But the first metal links that attach to the case DO NOT articulate at the lugs on the case. So the first point of the watch that articulates is between link one and two. This puts the effective lug width way out on this watch.
For me, that’s no problem since I am a big wrister. I like it. I had my wife try this watch on and it over-hanged her wrist. Her wrist is 6 1/4 inches around.
So more testing is needed to see what wrist size this G-Steel watch would be appropriate for and what might be too small. Stay tuned for the results of that test.
But I can confirm with my own experience wearing this that it will fit a wrist out to 8 1/2 inches well. There are micro adjustments to bring it in a little if you’re between links.
Just Buy it.
In conclusion the GM2110D looks great! The polished metal glistens, gleams, shines, and blings. It works well with the dress clothes that I’d wear to church but it’s a G-Shock. So if I get a flat tire on the way to church I don’t need to worry about it while jacking up the family van.
For $300 retail price, it can’t be beat! I’ve been eying the full metal G-Shocks for some time but the price was just out of my range. The cost of the GM2110D though, was much more manageable, and the difference between it and more expensive full metal G-Steel watches is against your writs. No one can see.
The G-Shock GM2110D-2A is now my church watch. I recommend it to anyone thinking of getting a durable good looking full metal G-Shock. 5 stars!