G-Shock 5600 Series / Casio

The 5600 is the closest descendant of the original 1983 G-Shock, the watch Casio engineer Kikuo Ibe built after his father's watch shattered on a pavement. His brief was the Triple 10: survive a ten-metre drop, ten bars of water pressure, and run ten years on a battery, a goal that took some two hundred prototypes and the insight that a module suspended inside the case, touching it at as few points as possible, absorbs shock before it reaches the electronics. That floating construction is still here. At 42.8mm wide and around 53 grams it is one of the smaller, lighter G-Shocks, with a raised resin bezel guarding the crystal and recessed buttons. Production models now carry 200m water resistance. The square case has become the archetype for a digital tool watch.