In my mind, the biggest miss with the Command is that Timex styled it to write an aesthetic check that it simply can’t cash. With a big acrylic crystal and only 100m of water resistance, the Command has very real physical limitations that prevent it from being genuinely tough.

As shown in the photo here, the crystal scratches so easily that you simply have to look at it wrong and you’ll find a new hairline scratch in the dial. I managed to scratch up the dial before even putting the watch on using a microfiber towel to clean it. Seriously.

You could put a strip of dial protecting plastic on it (much like you would for a cell phone), but to do so you have to buy another product and size it down to fit the Command’s size. Most people won’t do that.

It is true that most of Casio’s G-Shocks also use low-end crystals, but that’s more forgivable given that the surface area of the dial isn’t the wristwatch equivalent of a small moon.

Then the issue with the water resistance remains. Comparably priced G-Shocks, like the smaller and less expensive DW-5600E, have 200m of water resistance. This makes them considerably more aquatically capable compared to the Command.

100m of water resistance is fine for most situations, but if you’re wanting to dive under the water as opposed to just swim or snorkel near the surface of it, the Command wouldn’t be the watch to choose. You could rock a G-Shock, though…

Like the Command, the G-Shocks are also shock resistant. They don’t typically have a vibration alarm in the sub-$100 price range, so in that respect, the edge goes to the Command.