Have really been loving this watch since purchase. Looks great, feels rugged. Brushed metal really complements the olive face. Strap is stiff but sturdy. Perfect for the wilderness; love to take it outdoors and off-roading. Really appreciate the reliability that Citizen offers in both make and performance. Great value.
I'm a sucker for green watches and I love Citizens so I bought this when Citizen was unable to repair another watch I had sent in to be fixed. I know there were some complaints about the included band (which I like the look of), but I also ordered the SS band for the other version in case I had issues with the one it came with. Later I ended up finding a very nice higher-end dense twill NATO strap that matches the watch perfectly. In my opinion this should be the strap that comes with the watch. I've included an image, with this NATO strap installed it is now in my top 4 favorite watches, which is pretty good since I am up to around 57 now.
Just so you know where I'm coming from, I am a mid-range watch collector. I own several Citizen watches. This one is quite a bit different than others. First of all, it's a monocoque design resulting in no case back. Along with a screw-down crown, it gets a true 200M water resistance rating. You can actually go swimming wearing this watch with no concerns. The lumination is amazing. Even low light charges up the hands and hour markers pretty well. Shock and heat resistance are also great features on which to rely. I like a watch that can take a beating, and this one certainly qualifies. It has a Duratect coating, which is supposedly scratch-resistant. We'll just have to wait to see if that's true. I will update this post if I have any issues which contradicts this review. I guess I need to address the military green Cordura® ballistic fabric strap. It has a silicone rubber lining, which is very stiff. Because of this, it doesn't seem like it will ever "break in" like leather or canvas usually does. At first, it bugged me a little bit, because the strap is pre-formed straight, while my wrist is curved. So, only parts of the band make 100% contact with my skin. But this "issue" ended up not being so bad. After wearing it for only two days, I could barely tell any difference between this and leather or canvas. It also breathes very nicely, preventing sweating. At first, it wasn't an easy watch to remove, due to band stiffness. But, both keepers being floating (sliding) helps that process along. Just slide both of them back to easily unbuckle the clasp. This is not just a heavy duty watch on paper. It FEELS heavy duty as well. I hand-washed some dishes while wearing this watch, just for the fun of it. I'll continue to abuse it, within reason, during the 5-year warranty period. Citizen says I get an extra year warranty if I register it online. I've done this four times now, and have yet to recieve any confirmation or verification that I have indeed recieved any extra warranty time. Online registration is not asociated with their online customer accounts! That's just stupid! I would love to see all of my registered Citizens on my account page. Hopefully, I'll never have to use the warranty. My oldest Citizen Eco-drive is about 7 or 8 years old, and has yet to require any service or repair. It just keeps chugging along. review image
Just so you know where I'm coming from, I am a mid-range watch collector. I own several Citizen watches. This one is quite a bit different than others. First of all, it's a monocoque design resulting in no case back. Along with a screw-down crown, it gets a true 200M water resistance rating. You can actually go swimming wearing this watch with no concerns. The lumination is amazing. Even low light charges up the hands and hour markers pretty well. Shock and heat resistance are also great features on which to rely. I like a watch that can take a beating, and this one certainly qualifies. It has a Duratect coating, which is supposedly scratch-resistant. We'll just have to wait to see if that's true. I will update this post if I have any issues which contradicts this review. I guess I need to address the military green Cordura® ballistic fabric strap. It has a silicone rubber lining, which is very stiff. Because of this, it doesn't seem like it will ever "break in" like leather or canvas usually does. At first, it bugged me a little bit, because the strap is pre-formed straight, while my wrist is curved. So, only parts of the band make 100% contact with my skin. But this "issue" ended up not being so bad. After wearing it for only two days, I could barely tell any difference between this and leather or canvas. It also breathes very nicely, preventing sweating. At first, it wasn't an easy watch to remove, due to band stiffness. But, both keepers being floating (sliding) helps that process along. Just slide both of them back to easily unbuckle the clasp. This is not just a heavy duty watch on paper. It FEELS heavy duty as well. I hand-washed some dishes while wearing this watch, just for the fun of it. I'll continue to abuse it, within reason, during the 5-year warranty period. Citizen says I get an extra year warranty if I register it online. I've done this four times now, and have yet to recieve any confirmation or verification that I have indeed recieved any extra warranty time. Online registration is not asociated with their online customer accounts! That's just stupid! I would love to see all of my registered Citizens on my account page. Hopefully, I'll never have to use the warranty. My oldest Citizen Eco-drive is about 7 or 8 years old, and has yet to require any service or repair. It just keeps chugging along. review image
I've owned several Eco-Drive watches over the years and I've always loved Citizen's reliable, "set-it-and-forget-it" solar quartz movement. But I wanted a more rugged field watch with a high degree of water resistance and enough versatility to be a daily wearer, so I had high hopes for this watch. I like the brushed (not polished) titanium-coated steel case and sapphire crystal, both of which are highly scratch resistant. I like the screw-down crown, the 200-meter water resistance rating, and the anti-magnetic resistance built into the case. I also like the clean, uncluttered aesthetics of the dial layout, especially in this unique olive-green color. The paltry pictures provided on this website simply don't do justice to the subtle two-tone green coloration of the dial, which is nicely complimented by the brushed sheen of the bezel. However, several things about this watch disappoint me, especially because I have such a high expectation of Citizen and because this is a fairly expensive timepiece. One is the date window. I'm not the first to find this tiny aperture impossible to read. Either make the window large enough to read with a background that matches the color of the dial, or just ditch the date window. Other premier brands manage to do this simple thing quite well. Surely Citizen's designers have heard the complaints, yet they keep pumping out watches with a functionally useless and aesthetically ugly date window. Second is the lume. I fully expected the lume on the hands and hour indices to be bright and long-lasting. After all, this timepiece is rugged enough for camping, hunting, swimming and even diving, and therefore I expected the dial to be well-illuminated in murky or dark conditions. If you give the dial a good dose of light the hands initially give off a pleasant two-tone color, the hour hand green and the minute hand a pleasing powder blue. The tip of the second hand is also illuminated in green and the hour indices glow green. But this illumination quickly dims and doesn't have much staying power. It's definitely not going to last through the night. I find this very disappointing for this kind of purpose-built watch at this price point. It's a deal-breaker, frankly. Third - and most critically of all for this kind of quality Eco-Drive timepiece - the second hand does not line up precisely to the second indices on the chapter ring. I had seen a YouTube video review of this watch before purchasing in which the reviewer made a point of noting the precision of the second hand in landing exactly on the indices with each tick, yet my watch does not. The second hand is off the mark on each tick, landing somewhere between the second indices and off-center on the hour indices. This too is a deal-breaker, because I have such high expectations for the precision of Citizen's Eco-Drive movement and the build quality of this watch. I can live with the absurd and useless date window, although I'd rather not have it at all since it is so poorly executed and mars the aesthetics of an otherwise attractive dial. But I cannot accept lousy lume on this kind of watch, which is either a manufacturing defect of this particular watch or a case of Citizen being too cheap to furnish this watch with adequate lume. I also think the imprecision of the second hand in relation to the indices on the chapter ring is an unacceptable defect. I may have a defective watch that can be replaced by Citizen, but I suspect the fit and finish of this otherwise excellent all-purpose "tool" watch is simply not up to par and that's disappointing.
I purchased this watch at a Citizen Outlet Store. I really like the brushed finish and the olive green. As noted in other reviews, the date window is too small and difficult to read. I agree, Citizen should either get rid of the date window on this watch or make it more legible. However, not a deal breaker for myself. The stiff band has broken in a bit and is more comfortable than when first purchased. On the watch that I purchased, the second hand lines up perfectly with all the indices. Overall, I am happy with the purchase and welcome it to my modest Citizen collection.
Just so you know where I'm coming from, I am a mid-range watch collector. I own several Citizen watches. This one is quite a bit different than others. First of all, it's a monocoque design resulting in no case back. Along with a screw-down crown, it gets a true 200M water resistance rating. You can actually go swimming wearing this watch with no concerns. The lumination is amazing. Even low light charges up the hands and hour markers pretty well. Shock and heat resistance are also great features on which to rely. I like a watch that can take a beating, and this one certainly qualifies. It has a Duratect coating, which is supposedly scratch-resistant. We'll just have to wait to see if that's true. I will update this post if I have any issues which contradicts this review. I guess I need to address the military green Cordura® ballistic fabric strap. It has a silicone rubber lining, which is very stiff. Because of this, it doesn't seem like it will ever "break in" like leather or canvas usually does. At first, it bugged me a little bit, because the strap is pre-formed straight, while my wrist is curved. So, only parts of the band make 100% contact with my skin. But this "issue" ended up not being so bad. After wearing it for only two days, I could barely tell any difference between this and leather or canvas. It also breathes very nicely, preventing sweating. At first, it wasn't an easy watch to remove, due to band stiffness. But, both keepers being floating (sliding) helps that process along. Just slide both of them back to easily unbuckle the clasp. This is not just a heavy duty watch on paper. It FEELS heavy duty as well. I hand-washed some dishes while wearing this watch, just for the fun of it. I'll continue to abuse it, within reason, during the 5-year warranty period. Citizen says I get an extra year warranty if I register it online. I've done this four times now, and have yet to recieve any confirmation or verification that I have indeed recieved any extra warranty time. Online registration is not asociated with their online customer accounts! That's just stupid! I would love to see all of my registered Citizens on my account page. Hopefully, I'll never have to use the warranty. My oldest Citizen Eco-drive is about 7 or 8 years old, and has yet to require any service or repair. It just keeps chugging along. review image