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My particular F-91W is the silver version. I think it looks quite stylish, honestly - the silver contrasts perfectly against the black band, creating a nice retro look.
However, the most common one you'll find is black... and that looks pretty good too, all blacked out. I do prefer a metallic look, though.
On the lens is the Casio logo with the model number to the left and right respectively. It calls out that it has an alarm and a digital chronograph (a stopwatch), and that it has water resistance. Nowhere on the watch does it actually tell you the depth rating, which is 30m. It also points out the three little pushers - two on the left, one on the right.
The F-91W is made of resin with an acrylic lens above the LCD. It's the cheap stuff - but it doesn't mean it feels like crap. For the price, it's not half bad whatsoever, and definitely feels like it could take a bit of a beating. The acrylic lens might not, though. Acrylic is very hard to shatter, but it is absolutely not scratch resistant, so expect it to get some battle scars if you daily drive one of these watches.
The pushers are stainless steel, which is a nice touch! The back is also stainless steel, probably giving it some extra rigidity. It's secured with four tiny Phillips head screws.
The band / strap returns to resin, and it feels fine to me. About what you'd expect at the £10-20 price point.
When I put this watch on my wrist, I couldn't really get a good fit. I think the area where it would best fit in the usual position on my wrist would be achieved by adjusting the strap to in between the 6th and 7th hole, but of course there is no in between, so it's always either too tight or too loose for me to comfortably wear, which is a massive disappointment, but not something Casio probably saw coming in 1989.
The actual timepiece feels tiny when it's on my wrist. I think it's the thinness getting me here, as this watch is pretty damn thin. It's also quite small in general with a diameter of 34 millimetres. I think my sweet spot is a 38, and anything into the 40s is just too big. You will obviously feel differently here because everyone has a different size wrist and likes different sized watches. For me, the F-91W is just a touch too small.
It's a watch! So, it's got to keep the time. From what I can tell, it has done remarkably well, only drifting about 10 minutes in two years' time. You can set it to use 12 hour or 24 hour, which is a blessing for me as I personally really do not like 24 hour time. The LCD by default shows the time, AM/PM marker (if in 12 hour mode), the day in two letters (e.g. M and O for Monday) and the current day of the month. The latter two are squished above the time in a smaller segment.
It has one alarm setting and that can be turned on in two ways - to beep to alert you, or to be used as a time signal instead. I never used it properly, but the beep is fairly loud and you'd definitely hear it.
The stopwatch is perfectly fine. It has regular and split time measurements.
The backlight... Oh, dear, it's absolutely abysmal. Built to cost, and all that - but it's so, so bad. It dimly lights up the left side of the LCD, enough to see the hour and minute, but not really much else. It's probably my biggest pain point of its functionality.
I never tested the water resistance, but Casio rate the black resin version for 30 metres (3 bar). Apparently some people go swimming with it, but Casio state it is absolutely not suitable for that purpose. Supposedly many F-91W's have survived though, so feel free to try at your own risk.
Casio rate the battery for a lifetime of 7 years, and it's not skipped a beat in the 2 years I've had it, so I assume that's correct.
Overall, It's a cheap but dependable watch that is a must buy for anyone getting into watches or just need something cheap but cheerful. It gets the job done, what can I say? It's definitely got issues (that backlight..) but at the price you can't really ask for more than what Casio have given. If I had to have a watch and couldn't spend a bit more on, say, a Timex Ironman, this would probably be my pick.
I got mine off of Amazon, but they're basically everywhere.
