Citizen Eco-Drive Men's Perpetual Chrono A.T
Citizen Eco-Drive Men's Perpetual Chrono A.T
From the brand
Men’s Watches
| Dimensions: | 15.01 x 15.01 x 15.01 cm; 170.1 Grams |
| Model: | AT4008-51E |
| Batteries Included: | 1 CR2 batteries required. |
| Manufacture: | Citizen |
| Department: | Men's |
| Dimensions: | 15.01 x 15.01 x 15.01 cm; 170.1 Grams |
| Origin: | Japan |
Positives: it’s a great looking watch, it’s very accurate, and it sets everything automatically via radio signal. I love the eco-drive feature which charges on light.
Negatives: the bracelet marks easily from very little use (just placing it on the table has marked the clasp). It came with no battery charge and took ages to charge up as it was winter and not much daylight, I put it directly under a bright artificial light overnight which gave me enough charge. It’s very tricky to set up initially and you have to carefully follow the instruction manual (which you can find online), I had to reset it and then manually search for a radio signal, once I finally got that done it works perfectly and now automatically updates.
Early days, so accuracy not yet determined.
Bought as a replacement for a 13 year old similar, but not radio-controlled, watch that has given good service. Under some lighting conditions the smaller dials are difficult to read.
Biggest gripe is the bracelet. The catch appears flimsy and It can only be adjusted by removing or adding links. It lacks an additional securing catch that my earlier watch has
Bought this watch as the need to send more expensive watches away for battery replacement just not worth the hassle. Never had a Citizen watch but as on sale at the time of purchase took the chance and very glad I did. Great looking piece and does exactly as it states in the description. As other reviews needed initial charge which took me to 50% but literally an hour in the sunshine and it was fully charged and has retained level ever since. 3 months in and would highly recommend.
Just as described. Lovely wristwatch. You might just take Amazon’s upsell advice and buy the bracelet adjuster, too. I had to remove a couple of links and the link remover saved me having to wait for the jeweller to reopen.
Very easy job to remove a couple of links and the watch fits perfectly.
Light enough for everyday wearing, but a good, solid watch.
Can’t give more than 4 for water resistance as I haven’t tested it.
It takes up to fours days to charge fully. Once charged fully it should last 6 months before its needs more light. But if you wear it regularly there’s no worries. There is a much quicker way to charge it – but contact a local Citizen service centre to explain how to do it – I may not explain clearly enough. With a very low charge the watch is virtually impotent and you cannot even set the time manually. Once charged, I set the watch to receive the atomic time signal and it found the correct time in London and set the correct date. It’s a lovely watch and good value. I wrote this as many reviews has stated the watch was returned as they were dead… but It’s not the fault of Citizen…
Extremely high quality at a relatively low price for a watch of this caliber. High quality moments, sapphire glass, highly accurate, alarm, 1hr chrono, radio signal updates, world zones, 200m water resist & perpetual calender corrections. This has it all!
One of the main reasons I bought this watch was because of its atomic accuracy. It is highly accurate and even if placed in no signal area for very long period of time, it would still barely lose any seconds. This however is unlikely if you live in one of the timezones that the watch is focussed on since the watch attempts to update itself at 2am, 3am & 4am every 24 hours until it’s successful.
It really is a watch for people who want a stylish watch that they can just ‘set & forget’.
I have on several random occasions compared my watch to the online atomic clock and every single time it has been 100% accurate to the very second.
You will always have the actual time, even during DST, so no more conversations about who’s watch is correct.
The next big reason people buy the eco drive is for its capacitor technology. You do not have to worry about about replacing batteries, ever.
The watch has a maximum charge or approx 310 days. There is a charge level indicator displayed on the watch to give you an approx power level but this is not something you will likely have to worry about if you are wearing on a daily basis.
The watch will charge from all light sources but at different rates based on the strength of the light source. Natural light is a much more powerful light source than indoor lighting however they will all charge the watch with the very lowest (an indoor lamp) giving around 1 days power from a 4 hour exposure. The highest being outdoors on a sunny day giving 1 days power with only 3 mins of exposure and around 12 minutes for a typical cloudy day.
So, unless you lock the watch in a dark box for several months you will most likely never have to worry since it will usually always be exposed to some form of light source.
My only gripe is that mine came with all fingers pointing to 12 and absolutely no power. I’m not sure if this is normal or if it was because it had been boxed and warehoused for several months however if it had of naturally ran out I would not of expected all fingers to be pointing at 12. Not sure about that.
I put it under a lamp for 1 hour but got no movement. Luckily the Mrs has a small daylight lamp and as soon as I pointed it at the watch it started to tick and supplied enought power for me to set it up. I then put it by the window before bed and by the morning it had sufficient charge and had successfully updated the time with 100% accuracy. Ever since it has remained 100% correct with its highly accurate movement and auto radio updates working as advertised.
Due to the fact that I had to charge it from new and couldn’t set it up without first exposing it to a powerful light source I have deducted 1 star, however, the watch itself truly deserves 5 stars.
Would I buy the watch again? YES, even if it was more expensive. I have also reccomended the same model to multiple friends.
All of this amazing package with the cherry on top of a 6 year warranty truly makes this one of the best value, most accurate watches on the market. It hasn’t quite replaced my mechanical Tag Heur yet but at least I don’t have to update the time & date on the Citizen every time I pull it out of my collection.
Buy it!!!
Purchased as a present for somebody who has been wearing it on a daily basis for almost a year now.
It’s of solid construction and has a surprising number of features for an analogue watch. Principal reasons for purchase were the solar cell charging and the 200m water resistance meaning no need to worry about batteries or rain respectively.
It isn’t cheap, but is from a respected brand with a good warranty, so if you’re searching for a men’s watch in that price bracket I’d say this is worth considering.
I like the look of citizen watches and how it feels.
Also the battery is really good.
I now own 3 citizen watches Nd this one is my second best really good.
Great looking and working watch. Instructions are not very good!
Note, holding the bottom left button till it beeps will force a remote update. The antenna to the watch is the other side where there are not buttons. Let it charge to at least 3/4 then hold the button down and face the antenna side of the watch South West ideally by a window.
It will take about 3-5mins to update.
Also the watch charges best in sunlight, rather than artificial light.
If it’s a dress watch you need, buy a Rolex 118238 or even better, a Rolex 218238. However, if you want accuracy that no Rolex can possibly match, this is the one. Believe me, I have the Rolex 118238 and this Citizen is no contest on timekeeping. The citizen is bang on time without your input. Radio controlled from Germany and receives the signal well in the UK. Dresspiece or timekeeping? Your choice. Citizen RC Ecodrive wins hands down.
Best watch I’ve ever owned and I have a large wrist and it fitted straight out of the box . It took about 5 hours in light before it started to tick . It’s very low profile and heavy for its size but that only tells me the quality is top notch. I will write another review in a few months of use as I have not even set it up ye
In summary, I am really happy with this watch as the minor issues that I’ll list later do not bother me much. I bought it because I wanted a watch that I didn’t have to set regularly to keep good time and because not needing to replace the batteries was also a plus.
Pros:
Accuracy from the atomic radio control is of course perfect.
Great that you don’t have to replace the battery.
Signal from the radio control is consistently high for me (South coast UK). Make sure that it works for your time zone if not in the UK as the selection of time zones is limited.
The time is easy to read and the hands are luminous so it is readable in poor light. Date window is fine for my eyes but may be small for some.
Cons:
Anyone who wants a watch that is accurate to the second might (like me) be irritated that the minute hand moves in fifteen second steps. In practice it’s irrelevant, but it feels wrong.
The face of the watch is busy which can be distracting. Many of the additional features are hard to read.
Using the extra functions such as the chronograph is quite complicated – I suspect I’d need to reread the instructions every time I used them (although I’m not expecting to use any of them, so not an issue for me).
I get irritated that the second hand parks itself if I have the watch up a sleeve for a while – I think the watch is too eager to do this. It snaps back to the correct time quickly, but still bothers me.
Although you don’t have to replace the battery, the manual recommends services every two years or so – not sure if this is required to maintain the warranty.
I seem to have listed a lot of cons, but for me they are minor in comparison with having a watch that is always 100% accurate. Definitely recommended.
Really like this watch, have had it for a couple of months now so thought I’d leave a review. First off, I had a shock when the package arrived as inside the box was a random item, certainly not the watch, so it took a bit of sorting out, but I finally got it. The watch itself I really like. Yes it would be nice if it had a few more countries as the preset time options instead of the various American cities (plus London), I guess it’s aimed mainly at the American market. But you have the variable function as well as a work around if travelling elsewhere. And the UK time suits me anyway. Adida from that my only other slight negative is that the luminous dial elements need decent daylight to radiate light and stay light not particularly long, gradually fading after maybe half an hour to an hour ish (I’ve not timed it, but was in the cinema the other day and that feels about right). That’s a minor thing to me though, albeit it would be nice if it lasted longer. The watch design I really like, I particularly like the look of it in daylight. I wondered whether to go for the gold version but thought that woukd probably be a bit too glam after seeing it in shops and having worn the silver one a fair bit am glad i went with this one. Its comfy to wear (after taking a coupme of links out), legible but enough functions to have a decent ‘fun factor’ – I like the power level display, day of the week, alarm, day of the week and perpetual calendar. The core functions though are the auto setting time and solar battery cell, both of which work as expected and I love not having to think about setting it or changing the battery (and re-sealing to waterproof). It still works fine after 2 months, hopefully last for a good for years! 4.5 out 5.
One buys a watch for one reason. Exact time keeping. This watch does it,without being brash or in your face. It is a quality item and I would recommend anyone to consider it. My slightly lower rating on the readability of the watch is my fault! I’m getting old and so have to look a bit more carefully. A beautiful thing to own.
THE STRAP WAS VERY EASY TO ADJUST TOOK ABOUT 10 MINS I BOUGHT A LED LIGHT WATCH CHARGER TO CHARGE THE WATCH ABOUT 12 ON AMAZON AND CHARGED THE IT UP OVERNIGHT IT IS STILL FULLY CHARGED I THOUGH THE WATCH WAS GOING TO BE TOO HEAVY, BUT AFTER TWO DAYS I DON!T KNOW I HAVE IT ON. ALTOGETHER A NICE WATCH.
MICK
If you are not in Europe or America only time function you will get out of other functions from the watch, watch can be use anywhere in the world but it’s a waste that you will not be able to use full watch functions if out of reach of Europe or America radio signals.
Overall this is a fantastic watch
Great watch, my only problem with it is it does not automatically adjust the time based on your location. I bought this for a holiday to the USA. I had hoped this would automatically adjust based on the timezone (I was going to be in three US timezones as part of my 3 week holiday). Sadly it didn’t adjust automatically. I had to select the timezone manually. No big deal though, its simple enough to change, just a shame it didn’t do it automatically as I had thought it would.
The biggest drawback about this watch for me, is that I do not live in one of the five supported timezones. I live in Copenhagen, which is GMT+1, as is most of Europe. This mean I have to use the Alternative Timezone to get Central European Time, and when you use that, the watch no longer listen to the radio broadcasting the signal from the atomic clock in Frankfurt. This is such a shame. Especially since you manually set the watch by specifying your time zone a whole number of hours (or quarters of an hour, I think you can as well) relative to GMT, so the watch has all the needed information to keep the time used most frequently in Europe, but alas.
Even though I for this reason cannot use the radio controlled aspect of the watch, it’s still a pretty accurate time piece. I very much believe the manual which says the watch will keep the current time to better than 15 seconds per month.
I love it. Eyesight is going a bit so finding it difficult to view; features like the stop watch are therefore not easy to use (for me), so I don’t. But I still like it. A watch that is pretty much always right and doesn’t need a battery – whats not to like. I say pretty much as where I put it every night it doesnt find a sync signal, but in other places in the house it does and is easily sync’d on manual request.The watch is quite large but looks ok on my wrist (which isn’t large); it has some weight to it which I dont mind but may have gone for a titanium (strap) version if available at the time.
I then saw the Citizen AT4008-51E at an attractive price on Amazon. I can only agree and endorse the many favourable reviews of this Citizen watch, build quality appears impeccable. It is difficult to find anything new to add to so many articulate positive reviews. Of the few less than enthusiastic reviewers, thought is, among those may be some from buyers who would be more comfortable with a simpler instrument.
I personally like its appearance, the face is clear, not too blingy, and time legible in all light levels, good eyesight not to be taken for granted as so many years pass. Reassurance is available at a touch of a button, that the time, day and date displayed are precisely correct to within 1 second, and the power reserve is adequate. It keeps itself totally accurate wherever in the USA or Europe you may find yourself. You may need to reset the hour reference position for useful radio update, “LON”mode selected, for coverage across mainland Europe, the manual explains how to do that. During a recent 12 day trip in a part of the world where no radio signal can be received by this watch, and temperatures were challenging, its quartz movement kept time to within 2 seconds of absolute accuracy for the duration. Good reliability may be anticipated; the Eco-Drive energy acquisition system appears to utilise no moving parts; most energy capture in watches seems to involve large moving parts and associated gear trains. The elimination of those mechanical moving parts must surely contribute to reliability with a reduced need for periodic cost and inconvenience of lubrication and servicing. This philosophy may also explain the fact that the minute hand advances at 15 second intervals, a potential saving of perhaps 30 million mechanical movements a year. There is a generous manufacturer’s 5 year guarantee. Furthermore, once charged, if the watch is not exposed to light, it will go into “hibernation” mode and still retain sufficient energy to keep functioning accurately for several months. You will be lucky to get a few days of power reserve from even the best mechanical movements. I am delighted with my purchase, I find that it is an excellent instrument.
For purpose, it is a superior time-piece to those costing many times the price of this Citizen, this watch lacks only the doubtful kudos and ostentation associated with the wrist ornaments from the much advertised and “exclusive prestige” brands. If you feel you can bear to forego those benefits, then enjoy an AT4008-51E, it will be for sure as accurate, versatile and robust, probably more so, than the other guy’s ostentation. He shelled out perhaps 70 times as much, or more, for his “certified chronometer” status symbol, how smart is that? This watch is to watches what an SMS is to a GPO telegram; give yourself a pat on the back for the intelligent purchase of a truly 21st century time-piece! It truly is superb value, you won’t be disappointed!
Only thing to note: When you receive the watch it has not seen any sunlight. You will need to leave it out to charge for a while and only when the charge reading is near full will you be able to sync it with the atomic clock! Took me a while to figure out what was going on but after using the official YouTube set up video it was an easy process.
The watched arrived dead and took about an hour and a half before it began to work, being based in sunny Belfast, not, its still sitting at one half charge but works fine with that. I’m looking forward to the summer.
I spent a lot of xmas day impressing my nieces and nephews with the watch spinning it hands as I changed the local time between the pre-set time zones, pity there’s not more European representation.
As I’m sure your aware the watch updates itself by the radio signal sent from Germany via the atomic clock so its seriously accurate, this happens at 2am every day and if your awake and not in a nightclub/drunk it adds a bit of theatre to watch it update itself.
The luminous hands are very effective and last a reasonable amount of time before inevitably fading. All in all a high quality watch with some nice touches even if you never use the alarm or chronograph, and at this price well worth a look
I’m pretty hard on my watches and all of the have scratches an dings on them. Not this beauty I’ve worn it every day for a year and it still looks as good as it did when I opened the box.
Heartily recommended.
Edited 20th April 2019
I’ve had my Citizen Eco-Drive Chrono for getting on for three years now and worn it pretty much everyday, I think it still looks pretty good.
It still keeps impeccable time.
Like another reviewer the white lettering on the bezel has flaked off in places and I agree it’s from contact with cuffs of shirts and jackets.
I’ve had to replace the bracelet as it broke, replacement bracelets are available but pricey so I’ve bought a generic leather strap. Both these faults are insignificant in my opinion and are just wear and tear.
Still think it’s the best watch I’ve ever owned and if it did finally fail I would buy another one. How about that for a recommendation!!!
Time keeping is spot on, exactly to the second of the Atomic Clock and Charing Cross Station, perfect for never missing that train. What more could I want in a watch? Never needing a battery? Oh yeat it does that too 😉
Got this watch recently and it’s really nice. I wasn’t too sure in the beginning as I’ve never had a Citizen watch before, however it is quickly becoming the best in my collection.
The watch is solar powered so it will always keep charged (doesn’t need to be the sun, can be any light).
Keeps perfect time as it automatically connects up to the Atomic Clock broadcast at 2am every night (can be done manually too)
Keeps the date and year, knowing when it’s leap year
Chronograph
Alarm
Cons:
This really only applies to people outside the US or UK, the watch only has 4 US cities and London where it will automatically keeps time, however for those outside there is an alternative time that to can set to. I am not too sure if you go outside the US/UK if the watch will recognise this, but certainly on the face, it only has these options (maybe there are Mainland EU or Eastern versions out there?)
First of all, as a standard watch it looks and works good. After about a year of deaily usage its sapphire glass doesn’t have the slightest scratch or mark, and it has been working flawlessly all this time.
The radio synchronization feature is amazing – so long as you are in an area with good coverage. Reception in London is good (every day after synchronizing it always shows “H” meaning the maximum reception power) but in the north of Spain I couldn’t get it to synchronize at all. Synchronizing requires keeping it completely steady so I had to get used to removing it every night, what I didn’t have to do with my previous watches. Anyway, when it works the result is better than second-accurate; when compared against an atomic clock via Internet the seconds hand was moving perfectly in sync with the atomic clock.
When I bought it I was concerned about the solar charging, as living in London and having an office life I don’t see much sun especially during winter. The watch came with 2 out of 3 bars of battery, and after a few weeks it got up to 3. I have never seen it change ever since, what shows that it gets enough power to run continuously even from indoors lighting. I guess that so long as you don’t leave it inside a drawer for very long periods of time you should be fine. Actually it is also smart about it – when it detects that there isn’t any light for half an hour it stops moving the seconds hand to save battery.
The cons: my first disappointment whas when reading the manual, as I expected a maintenance-free watch for life but the manual states that the internal rechargeable battery needs replacing every 5 years or so, because -as any rechargeable battery- over time it loses its capability to keep the charge. I haven’t had to replace mine yet, but this puts you in the same situation as with a regular watch. The second whas when trying to use it; they tried to pack too much functionality in its two buttons + crown, what requires obscure combinations for doing most tasks. The net result is that I know how to use the chronometer (second accurate), and to change between the preset timezones (LON, NYC, CHI, DEN, LAX – pretty useless unles you live in the US). For anything else I need to check the manual.
Don’t take me wrong – it is a great watch and I am glad I bought it, but I must admit that it looked better on the paper.
So although I was actually trying to avoid buying quartz watch at the end I ended up with this beautiful Citizen watch. It has virtually every function I was interested in. It has nice look and feel, my wrist isn’t that big and I was afraid it could prove to be a little bulgy for me, but in truth one could say it is even on the small side. To my mind the only thing that could be improved in the dimensions is it’s height, if it was a millimeter or so smaller it would have been better.
Anyway, apart from that this watch has a nice, sporty look and a bunch of nice features to play with. It is true that if you do not live in one of the time zones that are covered by the available five cities you can choose from you won’t be able to use the radio control feature… every day. However, you do not have to use it everyday. I have this watch from roughly two months and from the initial setup and accuracy check, the watch has gained ~5 seconds. This means that you can safely expect the watch to be off with about 3sec. per month, for six months that means 18 seconds total. And every six months you can switch to a radio controlled city and force a manual check with the radio tower. This way the watch will automatically set the correct time including daylight saving off/on. Of course if you live in an area where you can not use the radio function at all, you will have to live with manual setting of the time, which is still kind of OK as the watch is pretty accurate.
One other thing that I would have preferred to be different is the days indicator to start counting the days from Monday and not Sunday. I live in Europe and for us the first day of the week is Monday, but that is personal preference here. Basically, once you set up the watch you will very rarely have to change something related to the time and date functions. The perpetual calendar function means that the day and date are automatically changed so that you don’t have to manually skip from 30 to 1 every two months or so(yes, even leap years like 2016 are taken care of). The water resistance rated as 200m/20bar should be enough for casual swimming and the sapphire crystal glass is virtually impossible to scratch. At a price of around 300 pounds(the price fluctuates every now and then) it may seem this watch is not cheap but believe me, for the quality and functions it provides you can hardly get anything better.
For me it has 4 killer features; the nightly radio synchronisation to an atomic clock, the perpetual calendar, unscratchable sapphire glass and solar charging.
I find that in Berkshire it will only pickup the radio signal from Frankfurt with low (L) power indoors and it sometimes fails to synchronise overnight unless I leave it on a windowsill where it always get a high (H) power signal. I have also tested it in Manchester (H), Edinburgh (H), Cork & Longford in Ireland (no usable signal during daylight hours; sometimes successful at night), Oslo (M), Vienna (H) and Miami (L outdoors only). In Europe I feel this model is only for those living in the GMT time zone, I.e. the UK and potentially Ireland or Portugal as it does not, despite picking up the time from Frankfurt, have the ability to synchronise to that signal when set to GMT+1. The nightly automatic sync was occasionally successful in Ireland but the signal is clearly much weaker than in the UK. So this for me is really a device for those living in the UK or USA.
That said, without nightly radio synchronisation this watch is still amazingly accurate. It is rated by Citizen to be accurate to within +/- 15 seconds a month but that seems a conservative estimate. I tested by disabling the radio synchronisation for a month after which my watch was only ~0.8 seconds out relative to GPS.
When the watch arrived in its box it was showing 3 out of 4 bars of solar power charge (enough to power the watch for between 30 and 210 days). Even in January I had no problem leaving it on windowsill for a day or so to get it up to the top bar charge indication of 210 days worth of power. If you wear this watch daily in the UK it stays fully charged.
Edit: after 1 year of daily wear the white digits have started wearing off (see picture) on the left side of the Tachymeter scale. I presume this is from rubbing against shirt collars. I think the cheap plastic bezel and its flaking white characters detract from an otherwise exemplary watch and have dedicated 1 start from review to reflect this.
So, thats when I started looking at Citizen as they are such a high reputable brand without having to break the bank!
I absolutley love this watch! It is well worth the money, although I was lucky enough to get it when Amazon had it selling for 284 for 24hrs only!
Like many have said already, out of the box it looks hugely more impressive than the photos. Before buying I looked quite a bit online for the weight of the watch itself (not boxed weight) to no avail. I can tell you that it is a nice weight that makes it feel high quality but by no means too heavy. It is very comfortable to wear. I compared it to the weight of a friends Omega Seamaster and its of similar weight. I think the Omega weighed appox 220g.
The eco-drive is great in knowing that I never need to replace the battery. At any time you can check the charge level by pushing a button on the watch. I cant ever see it getting low unless you live in a cave!
Had a little teething problem at the start syncing with the radio signal as it only picked up very low reception (there are indictors on the watch to show how strong the signal is marked as H(high) M(medium) L(low).
I live in Northern Ireland and initially thought I had lucked out as I was maybe out of good range. I could still sync it manually though even on low. At 2am every night the watch automatically syncs up the time/date/etc so that it is always accurate to the second! The first night it didnt sync and consquently was off by 5 seconds. No big deal but for a watch adveristed as the most accurate in the world you want it to be exactly that. However since then it has synced flawlessly with high radio signal.
Never need to set the time, date, or adjust for daylight savings or even leap years. The watch does it all for you!!
This is the most I have spent on a watch but it is by far the best watch I have ever had and know it will last me a very very long time. So if your still on the fence, I say go for it! You will not regret it!
I liked the appearance, suddenly right up there. And this seemed the best value “perpetual” watch with this appearance of analogue dial, big sweep second hand, and smaller dials for other information. It also fulfils the other requirements of radio signal timing, and a back up stopwatch, and an alarm. It does not appear to have multiple lap times, but I only ever used this facility once many years ago. I have worn it continuously since getting it! Controls are rather non intuitive, but not important. Its quite a big and heavy watch, but this is in keeping with its persona. Its great.
So, comparing the Citizen with the Casio Edifice where relevant:
Chrono – The Casio has a much more interesting gee whizz chrono, with a fast sweeping second hand that supposedly measures 1/1000 sec but if you are over the age of 40 you’ll need glasses to read it! The Citizen simply uses the second hand in normal speed to resolve it’s smallest time interval. I figures any more accuracy and I’d use my phones built in stopwatch or wear one of the g shock digital watches that I own.
World Time – The Citizen has one alternative time mode, so you can set this to one other time. You can of course set this to any time you want to, in 15 minute increments. Since I live in the UK, I simply leave it set to LON and let the radio control feature do its thing every night. When travelling to Europe I set to ALT-T which is set to +1 hour over the LON time. If you live in Europe you would need to use the ALT-T as your domestic or default setting which may or may not bother you. I suspect the Casio has several zones built in which you can search up snd set the alternative time to. Same end result, just perhaps an easier more satisfying method.
Perpetual Calendar – simply means like a digital watch the date compensates for the varying days of each month, and leap years, presumably driven from the atomic signal.
Crystal – The Citizen has a sapphire crystal, this for me was one of the major plus points over the Casio, and also the Calibre 2100 flyback that I was also considering.
Second hand sweep – The second hand does just that in normal time, so many chronos have a separate small sub dial to display seconds, and the full size hand is for the chrono only. The sweep is pretty good, it’s not micro perfect, in that the hand lands precisely on each second interval marking, but I am getting a picky at this price I guess.
It’s easy to read at a glance, which is sometimes challenging with busy watch faces, though some of the sub dials are obscured for large parts of the day by the main hands which makes reading them a little challenging at first until you have memorised the dial positions. The power reserve and RC signal strength check is neatly located by a single button press which is handy. Overall, there has been a lot of logical thought gone into its design, which is satisfying, after all it is marketed as a tech timepiece and not simply a piece of jewellery. Size wise it’s just about perfect for me, I’m 6ft 1 large build so a small face would look disproportionate; that said it’s not one of those comedy over-sized watches: I’m not a professional diver so why would I want to dress like one?
In summary, it’s a good balance of several facets; it’s not so geeky tech that you can’t wear it to work / evening out, it’s sufficiently technically sophisticated to use a serious referenbce time piece. Bit like owning a “proper” Land Rover, you might not actually need to be able to drive up a mountain, but it’s satisfying to know that you could if you wanted to.