#38 Funky Hopping Planets

This is the "Planet Hopper", full model number G-3011F-1VER. It's part of the series watches Casio released around February 2002, equipped with a Duplex display. The G-3011 was also available with a metal ring around the display. I think I rather like the whole resin bezel model.
This Duplex display makes it actually a cool watch. Different combinations of red and black liquid crystal can be chosen.
Although the design makes the watch look smaller than it is, the display is unusual big display. While from top to bottom the display is divided in three parts. The digits are significant bigger than most regular G-Shocks.
One good reason it was possible to use big digits is the fact that the seconds have moved to a second line in the middle part.
The day and date are clearly shown in the upper part of the display. Also here larger digits are used.
Most eye catching is the big oval eye. The crystal is curved above it and works as a magnifying glass. The eye is divided in 12 parts, each for every 5 seconds. If the eye is filled, the parts disappear one by one every 5 seconds, resulting in a 2 minute cyclus. A dotted line at the bottom shows the seconds.
A nice accent to this watch is the red light button. The button is well protected by two raised structures on both sides of the button. The raised ring in the bezel around the display protects the display. I pretty much like this structure on G-Shock. Before I owned a G-Shock my watches showed the marks of collisions with walls and door knobs pretty soon after purchase. In the past 9 years I have only managed to scratch a G-Shock display once and it was not even easy to achieve that. In this case my watch probably saved me for a deep cut in my wrist while installing school lockers.
The bezel, straps and back protector are streamlined integrated into each other. It's a quite difficult operation to change a battery on this kind of G-Shock, so I hope it will not be needed for a while.

Actually I never bought the watch after it was officially released, though I had looked at it at the shop displays often.
Several times I was on the point of buying the G-3011B-1V model. I believe that model has a separate strap run through strap adapters. The black resin strap with bright red stripe is very eye catching. That model is sold in Japan as the G-3011-1JR.
As these 3011's were sold for around €89.- I never got on buying one, considering the B version was only sold in Germany (at least, I could only find it there).
Quite some years ago I was able to get a blue/yellow version with a metal ring around the display (Moon Stepper). I am not sure anymore, but I believe I bought that one Canada for scratch.
For a basic model this G-3011 has good features on board, besides time keeping. First of all there is a Telememo on board. You can store up to 30 names and telephone numbers. Well, with almost everyone having a mobile phone now, with much easier data input, it's more a geeky function, but it's cool to have it. Furter ore the watch has 5 alarms (one as snooze alarm), a stopwatch function and a 24 hour countdown timer.
The last function is dual time. You can set a second time with 30 minutes intervals from the main time. It's probably handy when traveling, but the Worldtime function as found nowadays on a lot of G-Shocks are better. On the other side, when using dual time, you don't have to worry about summertime/daylight saving time.
I actually got this G-Shock, together with another G, in an unusual trade. My part of the trade is classified, but before you think strange things of me, just think T-Shirts, etc and 50 Gs article..
The former owner is Flexofiel, who also wrote a guest article last year on 50 Gs. He wrote me if I was missing this model I my collection, which was the case
Well, I must say I'm quite happy with the deal. The watch forms great to my wrist and with the back protector it's very comfortable. It's a pretty huge model, which makes the case look somewhat small. The huge digits are good readable, even if you choose the red digits. I haven't paid attention to recent prices, but I saw two versions with metal rings for sale on the WatchUSeek sales forum in April for friendly prices (US only). I set the watch on red digits now and I think it will stay on my wrist for quite a while.