Citizen Wristwatch Review

It is probably bad form to start a review with, “I really love my new watch!” Too bad, because I LOVE this watch.

Around about the time our Economic Stimulus checks arrived, I decided I was tired of the sophisticated, understated look of the Skagen I’ve worn for the last two years. There was nothing wrong with it. I just love big, complicated watches. So, I went to the best place in Madison to buy a new watch: Dykman’s Time Shop. (I have bought several watches there.)

After reviewing several Tissots and Seikos, I found the Citizen Skyhawk A-T in titanium. My last several watches were titanium, and I’ve loved them so much, I don’t think I would even consider a non-titanium watch anymore. The lightness, scratch-resistance and color are just superior.

This is a BIG watch, both thick and wide. In other words, perfect for me! Let’s run down the features.

• Titanium (also available in stainless band and a horrible rubber band)
• Waterproof (non-scuba)
• UTC time dial, 43-city world time
• Radio-updates from Atomic clock in U.S., Japan or Germany every day.
• Solar powered with over 120 days of reserve power when fully charged.
• 2 alarms, chronograph and timer
• Slide-rule bezel (slide rule? seriously?)
• Luminescent Markers, backlit digital displays, AM/PM dial, battery status/atomic clock indicator dial, mode dial, radio signal strength indicator.

So what do all of these features give you? Primarily, if you live in the U.S., most of Europe or Japan, (and you’ve properly set-up the watch) this watch listens to the radio every night between 1am and 4am and sets the time to the atomic signal. I’m really anal-retentive about time accuracy (god knows why) and this is a killer feature for me. I have a bedside atomic alarm clock too, and with this watch I don’t have to sync the watch to the other atomic clocks like I have done in the past. I’m sure very few people bother to do this, but like I said, I’ve got an issue with timekeeping accuracy.

Since this is a world-time watch, it would be excellent for frequent travelers. The secondary digital display indicates the time in any of the 43 time zones pre-programmed into the watch, and it includes the ability to create a custom time zone for those odd places in the world where clocks are off by a fifteen minutes or a half-hour. Not that I travel often, or at all, but let me give you an example of a great use for the watch. Let’s say you live in NYC and you’re traveling to Tokyo. If your home time is NYC, you would set the secondary display to Tokyo time. Then while you’re in the air over the Pacific, you would pull out the crown, hit the two buttons for 2 seconds and the two time zones will exchange places, putting the watch hands on Tokyo time and the secondary display on NYC time (the UTC dial will remain unchanged, of course.) Useful!

I’m finding the two alarms useful as well. I have one general alarm for the “you must get out of bed now” alarm, and then a floating alarm to remind me to do stuff. The timer is being used quite a bit for steeping coffee in the french press on the weekends.

Due to the titanium, this isn’t as heavy as it might be, and I imagine the stainless version is quite heavy indeed. If I were going to change one aspect of the construction, I’d replace the “non-reflective” crystal with a sapphire crystal. Granted this would somewhat increase the already-formidable cost, but it would greatly extend the potential overall life of the watch.

In all, this is a lot of watch. I’ve owned many cheaper watches that had more features (compass, thermometer, altimeter, pager, etc.) but I think I’ve found the watch that I will own until such time as I can afford that Omega Speedmaster I’ve always wanted. My only hesitancy lies in the reliability of the watch. My last Citizen had floating hands (hands that change position based on watch function) and while I loved it, it ultimately broke and could not be repaired. Hopefully that issue won’t arise with this one, because I’m really enjoying it.