Casio G'zOne Rock C731 Phone (Verizon Wireless)

My Second Rugged Phone -- A Great One! February 10, 2010

Reviewer:  C. D. White "Just Looking"  (Salem, OR USA) -

The only cell phones I have really liked have been rugged ones. I owned a Casio G'zone Type-S for several years. I dropped it on concrete, used it in rainstorms, took it boating and camping; and it just kept on serving me well. Finally, I gave it to my wife to try and I upgraded to the Casio G'zOne Rock C731.

The Rock has the toughness and features I liked in the G'zone and a lot more. Casio moved some of the side buttons so I no longer accidentally trigger the sound volume rocker switch or the speaker on/off switch.

The sound is great at both ends of a conversation. The speaker function has a louder max-volume, allowing hands-free commands and conversations in a variety of situations. The ring tone can be loud enough to be heard almost anywhere.

The Rock has good operating programming. For example, when I first tapped a key that could be programmed to a different function, it told me and offered to help me reassign it. Next time I used that key, it politely left me alone. It also offers an "Easy Setup" function to quickly guide the initial set-up of sounds, display, etc. You can skip any parts of the easy set-up. And, you can just directly set each separate item without using the easy setup.

I have been surprised to find that I use the GzGear functions all the time. The tide tables help our frequent agate-hunting drives to the coast. My wife and I are now relying on the pedometer for our daily walks and longer hikes. I used the GPS to accurately measure a few walks and then adjusted my stride length, making the pedometer's accuracy better than 95 percent. The compass checked out to be accurate. And, it is handy when Oregon weather hides the sun on days when we are exploring back-roads in the pickup (which has no compass). The thermometer is accurate. But, if the phone has been warmly riding on my belt in fall and winter, it has to be set aside for quite awhile to reach the ambient air temperature. I used the lunar phase view of the moon, sun, and earth to show my grandchildren why the moon was only half-full. They were impressed.

I have only one whine. The camera lens is on the back of the keyboard-half of the clam shell instead of the display-half. So, if you hold the phone most naturally, your finger can easily cover part of the lens. It took me a couple of tries to find a comfortable hand-hold for pictures or videos. But, the camera functions are very useful.

I cannot comment on the mp3 player or web-browsing functions. I hardly use them. I have those services covered with a Sandisk Sansa and my laptop for now. Also, when I need driving guidance, I rely on a wide screen Garmin GPS. It is always-on and firmly attached to my windshield. I cannot imagine trying to mess with any cell phone while I am trying to find my way through city traffic.

Okay, the Rock has music, GPS, web, and all the GzGear and other tools; but it is not one of those phones that provides a bunch of toys and candy while falling short on the essentials. It is a rock-solid telephone. I recommend this cell phone to anyone who wants a tough, weatherproof, and no-nonsense phone.

Casio Rock works for me January 29, 2010

Reviewer:  old177# "old177#"  (Penna) -

Like after 4 weeks use: Battery life (few calls,goes about a week between charges).
Survived getting soaked in bike jersey pocket on wet ride.
Flash light is fine. Camera is fine, can text pic free to Verizon and then get it free. No cord for it as of a few weeks ago. Trigger button to open it is not a lock, just a trigger to open it. I use it a lot. Ring is loud enough. Can use speaker phone, don't much. Heard 3G doesn't use much battery and that web suggested software changes were less than optimal. Could send old phone names and numbers to verizon free and then retrieve when I got this phone in the mail.
Looked up a time zone time of day on world map. Hope to use compass on cloudy motorcycle rides when stopped, but too cold for much of that in January in PA. Contact list font is large enough. Message icon is large enough. Screen is bright enough. Speed dial for 7 people is good.

Voice quality spoils neat phone. December 6, 2009

Reviewer:  A. Davies  (NC) -

I had an earlier Casio G phone. And liked it. So I got the "Rock".

This phone has a lot of fun features. Very neat compass/ temperature/ moon phase/ high tides function, good rubberized feel. Good display, camera with flash/ flashlight... etc.

BUT... voice quality is poor (hollow, crackly).

The poor quality has been a concern for other "G" phones by past reviewers, and it looks like this one is really the same. Too bad. Had to exchange.

ROCK January 2, 2010

Reviewer:  rock climber  (always near the peak) -

Way too many cry babies out there. For the guy that wants a solid outdoor phone,, GET IT.

Good overall, but not without faults July 1, 2010

Reviewer:  R.M. 

Let me start out by saying that my previous phone was a Motorola Razr V3xx for reference.

The voice quality seems just fine to me. No problems with what i hear, & no one has complained about how i sound, either. I text a fair amount (probably 200 texts a month or so).

Texting is more of a hassle than my old phone was. Going through the menus to make a new text is a pain, though you can set up a short cut to pass all the menus by. Then you've got to pick out who to send it to by picking a "slot" for that person & then chosing to look at your contacts to pick out the person(s). Then you can fill out the text message. There's also a surprising lack of punctuation marks. No parathesis or semicolon. If you receive a text while you're reading another, it asks you to choose which one you want to read, then you've got to go through the menus to see the one you picked to look at second. Nothing horrible, but inconvenient. It just seemed to me like they needed to make an extra step or two in sending text messages.

Bluetooth works ok. A little shorter range than i'm used to, but not bad.

Reception is pretty good. My office is a metal building & i get better reception than i did with my old phone, though that could be verizon vs. AT&T.

Battery life is fine. It doesn't impress me, but i can go 4 days without charging if i don't talk much. Probably every other day for more talkative people. I like the cradle. Easy to use, so i don't have to wear out the o-ring that seals the normal charger connection by pulling that hatch off all the time.

I don't use the internet features, i can't vouch for that part.

I chose this phone for a few reasons.
1) I have young boys, so i wanted a phone that could take a beating. I read all the reviews i could find on this phone. I believe one even said that they had to use a bat in order to destroy this phone. I don't push limits, but so far i've had no complaints. I've talked on the phone while out in a mild rain, but that's all so far as water resistance. It can take the punishment my 1 year old can dish out, too.
2) I listen to a lot of music, so i wanted a phone that could work as a mp3 player. The mp3 player is pretty good, though not perfect. I got an 8 GB SD memory expansion & it holds all the music i've got & manages it reasonably well. It's not an ipod, but sufficent. You can make your own playlists, too. Speaker quality on the handset amazed me. Completely lacking on the bass end of frequencies, but other than that deficiency it was great. I would have prefered the normal 1/8th" headphone jack instead of the the 2.5 mm, but i bought an adapter & all was well.
3) I use the calendar & alarm to remind me of a bunch of things that i would forget. This is the weakest calandar i've ever had in my cell phone history. The main weakness lies in making events repeat. It has the abibility to make events repeat (i.e. birthdays, or weekly meetings, etc.) however it doesn't actually repeat them. It just does it for the original day that you set the event for. Also you can't classify an event (birthday, anniversary, meeting, etc). It works fine for single occurances, though.

Here's the breakdown:

Likes:
Voice quality, mp3 player, G'z Gear (compass, pedometer, lunar calandar, sunrise/sunset times, tides, thermometer), flashlight, memory expansion.

Dislikes:
Texting convenience, calandar

Improve sound quality - don't cover the mic! July 22, 2010

Reviewer:  aet999 

I bought the first G'zone model when it first came out. My husband still uses it, he is an electrician, and we live on a lake. You just can't break these phones! I switched to a smartphone, after ruining a few I decided I needed to back to the G'zone.

I have noticed quite a few reviews that mention call quality (especially for the person on the other end) is very poor. I had the same experience at first, until I realized that the mic that you speak into is not at the bottom as it is on most phones....it's up by the hinge on the left side. So, if you hold your phone in your left hand (like I do), or any other position where the mic is covered by your cheek, people on the other end will not be able to hear you! I just adjusted the way I hold the phone and now everyone can hear me great! Not sure why the put the mic in this position.

Overall, I LOVE this phone. It's a step backward in technology from my smartphone, but at least I know I can count on it.

Great heavy duty phone June 27, 2010

Reviewer:  Benjamin Zeller  (Greenville SC) -

I am a home remodel contractor and there are certain features that I value in a phone. Durability because it will get beat up. Push to talk. Flashlight. However, I am a little disappointed that the battery life is relatively short (my previous 3yr old phone had better life). I am also disappointed that there are only a few decent ring tones. It is very unprofessional to have goofy songs and weird ring sounds protruding from my pocket when I am talking to clients, vendors, subcontractors. I can't find non-obnoxious ring tones on the Verizon ring tone page.

Regarding the sound quality. One of my colleagues has the Casio Boulder, it's sound quality is awful, equivalent to an old drive-thru speaker. My Rock has some of the best sound quality I have ever heard on any cell phone I have ever used. I suspect that the many poor reviews regarding the sound quality may be referring to the Boulder.

Likes:
Good voice recognition software.
Heavy duty
Push to talk
Flashlight
Good camera
Water proof
Lots of cool G'zone apps: compass, walking counter, thermometer etc...
Good form factor


Dislikes
Battery life seems short (about 2 days)
- My brother (a Verizon rep) did tell me that cell phone manufacturers are trending to shorter batteries
Comes with a paltry selection of normal sounding ringers

Overall great but weak vibrate February 20, 2010

Reviewer:  ScottDR  (Cincinnati, OH USA) -

Really love everything but the vibrate function. Sound quality incoming and outgoing is fine, not sure why others have had a different experience.

Best Phone i have ever owned! July 13, 2010

Reviewer:  A. Holtan 

I had the Casio G'Zone Type S (One of my favorite phones of all time) before the Rock and this is another great phone they have added to the line up. The only con if any is that it can react a little slow some times to the buttons you press and when you have the phone resting on your shoulder to talk to people it's hard for them to hear (angle of the mic). Other than that I give it a 10/10 for durability, reliability, functionality and the G'Z gear is pretty fun to play with. I left it out in my fishing boat the other night and it poured rain the whole night. I went out to get it in the morning and it was still working like new and still had a full battery. That's another great feature of this phone is the battery life. I can easily go 3 days without charging it which is great for trips to the lake on the weekend when you forget your charger. Plus it's pretty cool when you can dunk your phone in a glass full of water and then have one of your friends call it and watch it ring in the glass.

Voice Quality is Unacceptable. January 22, 2010

Reviewer:  John Perantoni 

I had one of the first versions of Casio's hardened phones and it was great for almost 3 years. I was happy to switch to this phone because it seemed to have everything that previous phone had while also being thinner and more visually appealing. Unfortunately the voice quality is completely unacceptable. Every person I speak to complains of not being able to hear me. This is a complaint I did not get once in 3 years with the earlier model. Additionally the software has a bug which confuses the incoming or dialed calls with the previous call's supporting data. I am refusing to pay Verizon a restocking fee on this phone. I'm sure that Casio will have to pull it from the market.