Citizen Men's Eco-Drive Sport Luxury World Chronograph Atomic Time Keeping Watch

There are a few reasons I think the AT-series watches represent the BEST of the Citizen Eco watch line, and are even better than their much more expensive JY series watches: 1) The numbers and paint on the exposed bezel of the JY series watches have a tendency to wear off and/or fade after a few years. You will NOT have this problem with the Citizen AT series watches as the rotating outer bezel is BENEATH the glass and cannot be rubbed off (the outer bezel fully rotates in either direction by turning the little knob on the lower LEFT hand side of the case). 2) Citizen uses cheaper mineral glass on the JY series watches to protect the watch face. Again, you'll not have that problem with the AT series because Citizen uses its much better SAPPHIRE crystal to protect the faces. The other thing that sold me on this particular Citizen AT models was the atomic timekeeping. It LITERALLY ticks to the second with the Atomic clock in Boulder Colorado. It's pretty impressive to have a browser open to the NIST web page on your computer and see your own wrist watch matching the movements second by second with perfection. The JY series also has atomic timekeeping but it's much more difficult to program all of its various options. A pull, a turn and a click of the crown are all it takes to change to another time zone on the AT series watches. Regarding aesthetics, this all blue watch is understated elegance, and with the yellow trim around the ring and the other yellow accents it's exceptionally sporty. Also, the blue leather strap is very comfortable. IMPORTANT NOTE: please note that the watch band that comes with the AT8020-03L is genuine leather with a water-resistant coating. While that coating will extend the life of the band against rain and sweat, the coating is NOT water proof however and despite the 200m water resistant capabilities of the watch itself this band should not be soaked continuously in water or you'll shorten it's useful life. And yes, you CAN get genuine Citizen 23mm replacement bands specifically made for this watch but they run about $45. The only other downside to this watch is that readability is a little poor in low-light conditions. The hands are luminous however and when it is completely dark out the hands will hold a small charge all evening. I've been able to read the time on this watch by holding it about 6 inches from my eyeball in the wee hours of the morning and there is no difficulty telling the time. It would be sheer awesomeness for Citizen to consider putting tritium gas tubes on their watches but that might be a little too showy. I'd also love to see Citizen trade in the nearly-worthless 24-hour subdial and use it for a 24-hour alarm. Ah, the wish list. When compared to other similarly-priced brands, the Citizen Eco Drive is so much nicer than any Seiko Kinetic (which requires HUNDREDS of shakes a day to keep time) or Seiko Automatic (which requires the user to wear the watch as MINIMUM of 8 hours a day to keep the springs tight according to their manuals). It's hard to convey the value of having a watch that ALWAYS works in ANY light (for MONTHS in the dark if necessary) until you've had one! Without hesitation, I love the Citzen AT-series watches...

This is my favorite watch ever and I am very close to retirement age. I have been wearing a watch 24/7 since I first learned to tell time. Mine is 10 yrs old and has been worn 24/7/365. I have had zero issues w/it. The manual is very easy to follow, which is saying a lot b/c this watch can perform so many tasks. Again, this watch is FANTASTIC! 10 yrs of 24/7/365 and still looking and running perfectly. When I first purchased this watch, I also purchased a blue silicone watch band as I wear it in the shower, beach, ocean, etc. the band appears/has stitching so it looks like a regular, non-silicone band. I have now been wearing this watch for 10years! 24/7, except when I need to charge it w/a lamp I have during late fall and winter. I haven’t had a single issue. My bedroom faces NE, so mostly don’t receive the nightly updates. I just wait until the 9 hour tick is facing west and update it manually. Always works and w/o atomic signal keeps excellent time.

I love this watch. It looks great. I really like the yellow accents against the blue dial. The blue leather band is a good match for the dial color. The sapphire crystal is an added bonus. The clarity and added scratch resistance of the sapphire crystal is an unexpected bonus. 1- Timekeeping accuracy is excellent (within 1/2 sec. per day). It synchronizes with the atomic clock in Fort Collins, CO at 2:00 AM, assuming watch 9:00 pm side is placed facing general direction of Denver and signal is strong enough to sync watch. I placed it in a south facing windowsill and it works 90% of the time. Time sync can be easily checked by one press of the 4:00 chrono pusher. The hand on the lowest dial (6:00) will indicate either "OK" or "NO". A second push of the 4:00 chrono pusher will return the watch to normal timekeeping mode. It will automatically return to normal timekeeping mode after about 10 seconds. 2- Eco-Drive feature is great. It ensures that the back of the watch will never have to be removed which may adversely affect the rated 20 BAR waterproofing depth. In addition, the power reserve of the lithium ion rechargeable battery can be checked by a single push of the lower chrono pusher. The indicator on the 12:00 dial will spin around to indicate remaining charge. A second push will return to timekeeping mode as in #1 above. 3- I really like the fact that unlike most chronographs the large second hand works in normal timekeeping mode. This is much better than having to watch the seconds on one of the small dials. 4- World time feature is great for those traveling to between different time zones... just use the button at the 8:00 position to change the time zone. Be sure to read the instruction manual. 5- This watch has many features I will probably never use, but It's nice to have them anyway. 6- Buy this watch from Amazon or another authorized dealer to ensure full factory warranty. Many of Amazon's "partners" import "Gray Market" watches which are backed by the seller's warranty and not the factory warranty. 7- Citizen has a great website where you can register the watch and download .pdf instructions. These are much easier to read than the instruction manual. 8- Another feature I like is Citizen's quality control. The second hand lines up perfectly with the hash ticks on the dial. The minute hand likewise "clicks" to line up perfectly with the hash ticks when the second hand reaches the 12:00 position. 9- I am impressed with the features and quality of this timepiece. I would unhesitatingly recommend this watch to anyone looking for a quality timepiece.

I dithered over this watch, a Traser Big Date Pro Blue, and the same version of the Blue Angles in a stainless steel band. The deciding factor was when Amazon lowered the price to $328.00 and then offered an ADDITIONAL 10% off which brought it down to $295.20. After that it became a no brainer. I've been wearing the watch for a couple of days now after letting it sit on my South-facing window sill to fully charge up and here are some of my thoughts on the watch: PROS: 1. It's a Citizen watch! Okay, not a bona-fide pro, but it's my 4th Citizen watch and they ALL still work perfectly. 2. Atomic time update. Didn't work the first time that I did a manual receive which prompted me to read the manual (which isn't near the boogey-man it's made out to be. Manual is very clear and concise, and easy to understand) which stated that the watch should NOT be moved around when in the manual receive mode. Next time I ran it it worked fine. (I live in Minnesota BTW - I have read where folks on the East coast have a harder time receiving the signal from Colorado) 3. Solar powered (Eco-Drive) This watch (and my other Eco-Drive watches) have not ever needed batteries. I left it on the windowsill of a South-facing window in the morning, and when I came home that night it was FULLY charged. 4. Saphire crystal. I'm not terribly hard on watches, but in IT field doing hardware work, racking and unracking servers they get the occasional bump on server racks, etc. the sapphire crystal holds up like a champ. You'd REALLY have to bang it up to get some serious scratches on it. 5. Looks! Let me say it again. LOOKS!! This is a nice looking watch. The face isn't horrendously busy although a few times I have to take a closer look to see the day-of-week, or whether daylight savings is on, but for normal use it's very legible and easy to read. CONS: 1. Leather strap. I REALLY wish I could have found this watch with a titanium strap at a decent price. I would have been willing to pay a *bit* more for it, but I did several weeks of searching and couldn't find anything I wanted for the price I was willing to live with. The strap is very complementary to this watch. The blue/yellow combination is awesome, however the strap is 1. very, VERY stiff so that it *crackles* when fitting it to my wrist and 2. pretty short for my wrist. (I have it on the second to last notch, and I can tell that I will have to bring it to the last notch during summer if it ever comes to Minnesota) 2. Luminosity. Perhaps I've been looking at the Trillium watches too long, however the lum on this watch is very dim and fades within a few minutes after being charged by sunlight or a lamp. Not a deal-breaker for me as this watch has many other fine points going for it. Just gets the mind wondering what Citizen would do to compete with the Trasers, or the Night watches. Id' be a Pavlov's dog for sure if they came out with something like that. OVERALL IMPRESSION: This is a BEAUTIFUL watch, well worth the purchase price even at the higher $389.00 price. (Thanks Amazon!). The Eco-Drive, coupled with atomic timekeeping (aka Radio Controlled), Blue Angels motif, and lastly the Citizen brand make this a keeper. I've already ordered a few bands for it. (One thing to keep in mind - the band-size is 23mm - VERY DIFFICULT to find them) I found one black w/blue stitching rubber band for it with 24mm size that I will cut down to size as well as a 24mm NATO strap for it that I've been assured on WatchUSeek will fit okay. So, if you're on the fence about getting this watch don't hesitate! Update 1/29/2014: I ordered and received Hadley-Roma colored rubber stitched 24mm watch band from globalwatchband.com. They have black rubber bands with blue and yellow stitching on it. Since they are 24mm and the Citizen is 23mm a little bit of razor cutting was in order, and VIOLA! I have a very comfortable rubber watch band for this watch. The blue stitching doesn't show as much as I would have liked so I've ordered a band with yellow stitching. Overall, I couldn't be more pleased.

This is my first citizen watch. It looks amazing! The interesting thing is that slide rule bezel is controlled by the "button" by turning it. The grip on the button is good enough to turn with one finger. It basically didn't come with a manual, but it came with a link to a pdf version of it. It normally sets itself thanks to the atomic timing, but if you don't live in a place that does it, be sure to reset the watch to zero before you set the time. Follow the instructions exactly. Some acronyms on the watch I had to look up. The left side of the bottom dial is whether you have the radio signal (RX) OK or NO. The top dial on the right side (SMT) Summer time or Daylight savings time on or off, which is when you set the time manually. The time zones, the acronyms are airport codes of places in those time zones. The date has a deep indentation, so the watch has to be looking directly at you to see the date in its entirety. It doesn't bother me since the numbers are uniquely different. The strap is really nice and comfortable. However, when you first get it, the section with the circles are very stiff, so you have to make the leather get use to your wrist so it forms to you. An extra strap is almost $70, so I bought an aftermarket silicone strap from Barton for $25, so I can preserve the original strap. The problem is that if you look at the end of the citizen strap, it has a curve so you have to force it in there. It's a bit of a pain, but it's doable. But something to keep in mind. Overall, it's a fantastic watch. It has a sapphire crystal with slide rule, with the Blue Angels logo on the back. The colors are great, once the strap is formed to your wrist, it's really comfortable. Once you set the time properly, with the month and year, you basically never have to adjust it (from some videos they say you have to maybe once a couple months).

This is a stunning timepiece. The dark blue face with the yellow line underneath it and the chronograph meant to look like airplane gages are simply amazing. The only two details I would recommend considering are the strap will not fit larger wrists and manual set up will be required if you are outside the radio signal coverage area. Despite that, it is a great value for your money and the fact that you don’t need to worry about batteries makes it even better.

Where do I begin, First of all let me say I absolutely love this watch! I have never been a fan of quartz watches. I honestly purchased this watch almost completely off of looks alone. What can I say it's a stunning watch! When I received the watch it was completely dead. I sat it down in a window and it charged right up no problem. I bealive a lof of other reviewers on here didn't know this was a eco drive watch (citizens way of saying solar powered) and they thought they recieved a broken watch. I also did a reset to zero when I received it, I was to impatient to wait for the watch to connect to the radio signal and set itself. This watch is atomic meaning it connects to a signal and automatically sets the watch for you everyday. So you never have to set it again. This happens around 2-3am every morning. I just sit my watch in a window with the crown facing the tower, in my case ft. Collins Colorado. I believe the rage is about 1,600 miles so if you are farther than that in North America you might not connect to the signal. Okay now to get into the things I love and things that a like. Honestly I don't hate anything about this watch. I'll star with what most reviewer have complained about on this model. The strap the terrible strap: Honestly it's actually pretty good. I mean is it amazing no but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. It's a little stiff at first. But it breaks in nicely after about a full days wear. I actually really enjoy wearing it. Accuracy: it's perfect all the time. I can't say anymore than that. Lume: It has beautiful blue lume. Pretty bright at first but dies out pretty quickly. This to me is the only real drawback of the watch. Build quality: This was my first citizen I own many microbrands, JDM Seikos, a Rolex submariner (gift from grandfather) lol. And let me tell you I was completely blow away with the build quality of this watch. It is top quality the brushing with the polish just going around the curves of the case, the blue dial, the applied hour markers, the the yellow seconds hand. This watch is truly great quality and beautiful! Now if you actually made it through all of that! Just buy the watch! You will not regret it!

The movement in this watch is just fantastic. The movement of the hands is very precise, with the hands aligning perfectly with the marks on the watch face. In most locales, the watch automatically sets the time, date, and daylight savings time, based on a radio signal transmitted from a number of locations across the globe. It is great for those that travel; you can select a city in the timezone you are in, and the watch will automatically adjust the displayed time accordingly. The watch has a solar cell built in, and charges its internal battery from this. This means as long as you expose the watch to light regularly, you won't have to replace the battery. A full charge supposedly lasts 6 months, so even if you wear it mostly under clothing and out of the light, you'll just need to remember to stick it under a light overnight every now and again. The watch also looks very sharp. It's not really a dress watch, but it's nice enough to wear with nice clothes. One drawback of the cool looking dial is that it is a bit cluttered, and the writing on it is very small. My vision is declining, and even with my reading glasses, I struggle to read some of the things on the dial. The day of the month is reset and partially shaded, and so can be very hard to read. Also, the clutter on the dial and the general low contrast between the hands and the things on the dial make it a bit harder to read the time. You often can't read the time with a quick glance, and have to take a bit longer to really look. The third button (the one on the left-hand side of the watch) isn't really a button, but rather a knob that you can rotate. As you rotate this, it rotates the outer dial. This looks like some slide-rule type design that supposedly lets pilots perform calculations such as distance or fuel consumption to a destination. I'm not sure if that's really practical, or just a decorative thing. Personally, I could have done without this "feature". Finally, some people have complained about the band. It doesn't feel like the leather that I expected. A leather band is nice as it gets more supple and softer as it breaks in. This band may not even be leather, I am not sure. It is very stiff, and makes a strange crackling sound as i flexes. I hope that it breaks in over time, but right now it's very stiff and a bit uncomfortable. Also, I have very small wrists, and it fits me just perfectly. So people with large wrists should verify fit before purchasing this watch. All that said, I love the watch, and feel that the positives far outweigh the few negatives. It's by far the nicest watch I've ever owned.