I am a bit of a collector and fan of fine watches. I have always been impressed at the Citizen Automatic quality that is comparable to other more expensive watch brands. I'm a fan of Rolex and Breitling; and I own submariners. After receiving this Citizen watch, I was impressed at how bright and luminous the dial is. This watch has the feel of quality. I like the serrated bezel feel as you rotated it, it has the feel of strength and precision. I particularly like how the sapphire crystal is flush with the bezel. On other watches like breitling the Mineral crystal is always set higher than the bezel. This watch has clarity of date so I don't have to use reading glasses to see it, the color is amazing. The ion plating is done well but time will tell if it's a durable finish. If I could choose, I would prefer a DLC finish (Diamond like carbon) Coating which is tougher and stronger and more durable for wear or loss of color finish. The screw down crown is easy to unscrew to open for winding or make adjustment on the watch. I noticed how smooth and precise it screws back in and how well a feel when it's tightly sealed. This watch is rated for 200m and simply a great diver watch with a fun sport watch feel. It's sharp and has gotten many admirable looks and compliments. For the price, this watch is well worth it! It has amazing detail and great craftsmanship. I have it a 5 star because it looks and feels like my more expensive watches and I paid a small fraction. I can't wait to wear it on my next dive and see is performance and brilliant dial under water.
Citizen Response
Disappointed because it was smaller in real life than I expected. The picture made it look bigger. I am going to keep this watch and wear it but not as much as I expected.
This watch looks really cool with the black case and green dial. I love the full lume dial, it makes me feel like the watch is alive. It is a great watch but not perfect. I so want to give this watch 5 stars but can't and it's really just for one issue. The hour and minute hands have no contrast against the dial. Now you can see the hands during the day just fine, in a dark (with light) room just fine, when the dial has a lot of lume just fine but when the lume is low and the room is really dark or out side at night it is impossible to tell the time. This because the hands and dial are the same color. I had read other reviews that stated this but said, nah i will be able to see the outline of the hands. Nope. If they used a different lume color on the hands or made them more solid it would be 5 star. If you don't care about that then this watch looks awesome, it is heavy at 166g, but I love the crown on the left side. I wish more companies would do this, it totally eliminates the crown digging in to my hand.
It's beautiful. Just the right weight. I'm not sure the "full face" lume is really that much better. (Might be better with light face and dark hands.) But it's easily readable in daylight. (And for a while with my aging eyes at night.)
One big problem is the lume color on the hands being the same as the dial males it near impossible tell the time in anything but perfect situations.
I was impressed opening the box but was disappointed soon after discovering the watch runs slow by 2 minutes per day. Citizen exchanged my purchase for a new watch which sadly is no better. I wasn’t expecting accuracy equaling my Omegas at this price but I feel it’s too far out of spec (+20/-40) to keep even as an everyday beater.
I really liked this watch EXCEPT for the fact that the dial and hands are the SAME COLOR. The fully-lumed dial is cool but then make the hands black or at least a different color lume. Otherwise this watch is comfortable on the wrist and the coated steel has a pleasant feel to it. Good-looking design, especially the tapered bezel which gives it a sleek profile. I don't want to customize the hands and void the warranty... so Citizen please let me know if you start offering this watch with hands that don't match the dial.
Had for 2 years so far it’s a DOG 2 warranty trips no power reserve at first “new” movement I have Vostoks that are quieter personally I cannot rely on this even for daily wear faith in the brand anymore