New slimline G-Shock smartwatch is designed for running and intense workouts

Casio’s G-Shock watches have a proud reputation for being chunky, rugged beasts. It’s one of their selling points. But if you’re running a marathon or doing an intense workout, you often don’t want something like the time-piece equivalent of a Sherman tank on your wrist. And that’s where the new slimline, more compact Casio G-Shock GBD-300 comes in.

It combines the fitness tracking abilities of the G-Squad GBD-H2000 with a slimmer, more compact body than traditional models to provide a more comfortable experience for intense exercise.

Comfort is further enhanced by a textured wristband that apparently prevents stickiness caused by sweat, while retaining a non-slip fit. The durable body is water resistant to 20 bar and – because this is a G-Shock with a reputation to uphold – uses two separate bezels to protect the main module from shocks that would damage ordinary watches.

It tracks everything you’d want from a fitness-geared smartwatch: distance, pace, steps, calories, etc. The selectable log view displays step count for each day of the week or running distance for the month.

Additional features include four alarms, a countdown timer, a stopwatch, and 38 world times.

Bluetooth low-energy connectivity with smartphones mean you can hear notifications of calls, emails, calendar events and social media posts (or you can just set the watch to vibrate). Used in conjunction with the G-Shock Move app, this gives you options to create training plans, log data and use GPS distance correction.

The GBD-300 is 48.9mm x 47.4mm x 14.9mm and weighs 60 grams. It is due to arrive next month in black (GBD-300-1), white (GBD-300-7), and yellow (GBD-300-9). Prices have yet to be announced.

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