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

The world of watches is obviously subjective -- highly subjective, in fact -- and many will argue brands and features and prices to no end, when really much of it amounts to mere personal opinion, versus true knowledge or industry expertise. The fact of the matter is asking yourself what you want your watch to do, what you want it to look like while accomplishing those functions, and how much you are willing to pay, to get what you want. I was looking for a watch specifically for travel that can instantly change to different time zones. I wanted good water resistance, solid lume for display in the dark, a chronograph and at least a date feature, if not date with day as well. A bonus would be a sapphire crystal. I wanted it to look stylish, have some distinction to it, and not cost an arm and a leg. That may all seem a tall order, but not for this Citizen. Widely regarded as a "best choice" selection, and with appearances on more than a few "top watch" lists, this World Time Chronograph is nothing short of brilliant. Not only did it give me all, and even, more than what I wanted, but has the added bonus of being an Eco-Drive watch, one of those with the proprietary Citizen tech of being powered by light. So, no battery to worry about, but not the hassle of an automatic that needs a watch winder when not in use. Photos do not do this watch justice, and it wasn't until seeing some YT videos of it, and reading/watching various reviews, that I was really sold as this being the one that I wanted. I was hesitant at first only because, shortly before they really went big with the Eco-Drive technology, I did own a Blue Angels Navihawk, battery powered, that died after not much use, so I was a bit put off of the brand, but it seems things have improved (or maybe I just got a lemon back in those days) since general feedback on Citizen is very good. Like Seiko, they offer some truly world leading features. It's not a Swiss time piece, obviously, so it doesn't come with bragging rights for those who care about such things, relative to what matters to them, but, as I say, I was looking for specific functions, and world time that changes on the fly (or at the push of a button) is not something a lot of Swiss or even luxe brands care much about, outside of having a GMT (sometimes UTC, especially on a German piece) feature. You can spend half a million dollars on a watch, literally, and still not have the convenience this watch provides (as do other models from Citizen, and as do other watch makers, such as Seiko) where you just twist an indicator over to a city, push a button and, presto, new time is displayed. This is also a radio controlled watch, meaning that it will seek, once per day, to connect to one of five worldwide "atomic" clock signals at a specific time (or on demand, if you prefer) in order to adjust itself for accuracy, in order to be dead on true as an incredibly accurate time keeper. It should be noted that such is not always so simply accomplished however -- for example, when in the city, it may not be able to establish any connection, due to interference -- so it's not a feature that "works" unless there is very clear and unobstructed access to the atomic clock signal being broadcast. In other words, don't expect the automatic radio controlled accuracy feature to work from inside an apartment building in the middle of a metropolitan area. If that's where you live, it's a bit of a useless feature then, given that, in order to access the signal in the USA, for example, you'd need to leave your apartment and go outside to where you can find an unobstructed signal zone, determine how to face the watch receiver toward Fort Collins, and do so at a time when the signal is strongest, for best results, such as at two in the morning. Not exactly a convenience, in that instance, having to head out to a field somewhere in your jammies in the middle of the night, hoping not to be mistaken for a weirdo... Even so, the watch is certainly more than accurate enough for use, even without lining itself up to the atomic clock once per day. Mine has yet to be adjusted to "true" time, but, in checking in on the atomic clock, mine is within a quarter second of accuracy, so that's not bad. I certainly won't be late to any appointments, with accuracy on that level. The looks, as I've said, are far better in person. It has a beautiful sense of "depth" to it, and the aircraft instrument styling is completely impressive. The "Blue Angels" edition I have is gorgeously detailed, with yellow accenting that spices up the look just enough to be noticed. Check out YT vids, or blog reviews, to see the watch from all angles, and you'll see what I mean. You can stare at this thing for hours, just to admire it. If you're not a fan of the Blue Angels version, keep in mind it comes in other variations. While some may think the dial is a bit busy, for all that is happening in a 43mm size space, it presents itself as a very clean look, and possibly it's just the inner slide rule bezel (operated beautifully by rotating the button at lower left) that seems to make it cluttered, but in person it's a very crisp and easy to read design, overall. Keep in mind too it's delivering a lot of facts in that small area -- date, day of the week, radio signal reception indicator, 24 hour indicator, power reserve indicator, DST indicator, chronograph and world time features, etc. There are, of course, plenty of watches with less going on, but then you have to minus those features from what you're getting, plus be stuck with a much less interesting watch. For this model, the richness of detail is part of what makes it stand out -- very nice to glance down at your wrist and see what looks like the instrument panel of a fighter jet. Although this watch is also sold with a leather band, I opted for the stainless steel bracelet, to dress it up a little, since the leather, when combined with the already sporty dial, makes it seem more suited to a weekender watch, rather than something you could also wear to the office (depending on your office, of course, ahaha). The bracelet itself, in brushed stainless, is well made, comfortable, and was easily adjusted for perfect fit. It is a lightweight watch, easy to wear. In terms of the Eco-Drive feature, this is my first Eco-Drive watch, and I was worried a bit from some complaints I've read that, without regular, focused charging periods, these watches may start to lose their juice, so to speak, but, thus far, simple routine wearing, even in this darker wintery weather, has been more than sufficient to keep the charge up, so no complaints at all with the technology there, which, as ubiquitous as it is within the Citizen brand, is, I'm sure, something they've perfected by now. Even so, the manual did come with a range of disclaimers, and did suggest that it should be specifically charged on occasion, in full sunlight, for optimum performance, so keep that in mind, since that's a bit more fussing than a battery powered watch that just keeps on keeping on, whether being worn, or on a shelf. Seems more than worth it though, at least IMHO. Overall, I think this is a stunning time keeper, and well worth the rave reviews and kudos of acclaim it has received. Do be aware that prices here on Amazon tend to run less than other places, and I learned that Amazon is an Authorized Dealer, according to Citizen, so you still get the full warranty from Citizen, when buying on Amazon. Go Amazon, go!!! In summary, while it may be less watch than other options (depending on feature set) when listed up at the six hundred dollar range, priced far less, as it was on Amazon, it was an exceptional buy and a huge amount of "watch for the buck" compared to any other offering. At any price, there just aren't a lot of watches with this range of features and certainly Citizen, as well as Seiko and some others, are the masters of this realm, but, at the price provided here, the feature set is nearly impossible to rival, with not only accurate time keeping, chronograph and perpetual calendar all on board, but also the "on the fly" world time adjustment, atomic time keeping (when possible) and all packaged under a true sapphire crystal in a case with full 200m Water Resistance. Citizen really hit this one out of the park. HIGHLY RECOMMEND

This watch is fun to wear and has all the features I want. It has an attractive blue dial that absorbs light to charge the battery. I shouldn't need to replace the battery for decades. I have one Eco Drive watch that is 23 years old and still using the first battery. It has a stopwatch that is easy to use that measures to 1/20th of a second, day of the week retrograde subdial, date window with a matching blue background. The date is a perpetual calender so it shows the correct date no matter what month it is and during leap years. The retrograde day of the week subdial looks nice and I like the 24 hour subdial. The stopwatch can be accessed by pressing one pusher. Press it again for start/stop then press the other button to clear it back to zero and again to go back to timekeeping mode. It's very easy to use. You don't have to turn the crown to access the stopwatch. It's a one hour timer so the hour and minute hands will continue to keep time while the second hand and stopwatch subdial work as the stopwatch. This is an atomic watch. It receives a signal from the nearest atomic clock every night and corrects the time and will automatically adjust for daylight savings time if you have that feature on. It has a signal indicator so you can see when it is updating and you can check at any time whether it updated the night before. You can even use the atomic clock signal for the initial time and date setup but you will still need to set whether you want to use daylight savings time during the summer. This watch is a set it and forget it watch. Just charge it up with sunlight near a window for the first week (it needs a lot of light in the beginning to reach a max charge) then set the time, date, day and DST if you want it and as long as the watch gets enough light to keep it charged you will never have to change anything on it again. Remember, you can use the atomic clock signal to initially set everything but the DST setting if you want to. The signal is strongest at night and the watch needs a sufficient charge before changing any settings. You can also find easy step by step instructions for setting this watch on You Tube. Search for how to set the Citizen H800 module. I like the stainless steel bracelet of this watch. It's comfortable and nice looking but I wear mine on a Borealis 24mm blue vintage style dive strap. It's extremely comfortable and the adjustment holes are very close together so I always have a perfect fit. The strap thins out near the buckle so it isn't so thick on the bottom of the wrist where it overlaps like some dive straps. This watch has 23mm lugs but the 24mm rubber strap easily compresses to fit this watch. The color match is amazing. I also bought some 23mm navy blue leather Racing and Rally straps from Barton Straps that look very nice on this watch. Those are made with Horween leather. Barton also has a Classic leather strap. Barton Straps can be found here on Amazon. Look for Barton Horween leather Racing strap. The Barton Racing strap looks similar to the strap Citizen sells for this watch but is made with much better leather and costs less, at least when I purchased it. If you are looking for a low maintenance nice looking stainless steel watch with a blue dial that will always show the correct time and date and has a stopwatch then this is the watch for you. Once you set the time, date and DST you should never have to worry about those settings again. Just wear and enjoy this watch.

This is one very special watch. The quality is more than the price point would have you believe. Incredibly accurate, well made, easily read, despite the number of complications. Beautifully crafted. Citizen went all out with this one.

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...

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.

First, I should mention that I tried several E6B watches before I settled on this one. The others were Seiko models, a brand I have worn for the past 20 years. The Seiko models are all well built but I could not read the slide rule scales except in bright lighting conditions. The main issue was the size of the text and scribe lines on the Seikos. There is a lot going on in a very small space. The slide rule on this Citizen watch is easier to read and work with. In no particular order here are my observations after having worn the AT8020-54L for a few weeks now: First, the watch is a solid, well-built machine. The workmanship is excellent as are fit and finish. The face is large and easy to read. The numbers and hands are not very bright at night and it takes me a moment or two to orient, though they are readable. I do miss the bright radium dials we had when I was younger. The watch band was a little on the small side for my large hands and wrist right out of the box. It left a faint imprint on my wrist whenever I removed it. As the watch band came at its largest setting there was no way to lengthen it without adding another link. Citizen to the rescue-turns out they will send you an additional link at no charge. Great customer service! The OEM band is solidly made and the clasp has a positive locking feature - very nice. The precision of the slide rule scales is the best I've encountered in E6Bs. A large 43mm case means more space for the slide rule text. There is a single scale on the outer bezel which is easier to read than other E6B's I have tried. The bezel is rotated using the knob at the 8 o'clock position. The bezel is completely contained inside the watch face and will not be knocked out of alignment by bumping against something. If you wear gloves the knob can be tricky to get hold of. The scales align precisely around the circumference when "60" is rolled to the 12 o'clock position. There is no tachometer scale (hyperbolic function) on this watch so you have to do that math logarithmically. Use the stop watch to measure the time for a single event in secs, then place 36 (for 3,600 - converting secs to hours) on the outer scale over that time for a single event on the inner scale. Look outside the 10 mark on the inner scale to see your answer in units per hour. The stop watch has a 1/20th of a sec resolution and is quite precise. It does NOT have a split time feature though. You can start and stop the second counter by pressing the upper knob but when the watch is stopped, so is its time keeping function. As a race fan I really miss the split time feature. The watch has a small radio receiver and will try to update itself relative to established atomic references each morning. There is a small scale to the left of the lower subdial which indicates if the latest update was successful. I have an atomic reference app on my iPhone which is well within a small fraction of a second with the watch as I write this. I believe the watch is the more accurate of the two. As a perpetual calendar watch, I am ecstatic that I should never have to set the date again. The watch accommodates leap years and any month with less than 31 days. It also manages to handle daylight savings automatically if you toggle that feature. The watch is powered by a rechargeable battery which gets its charge from photovoltaics cleverly integrated into the watch face. They are well-hidden - I cannot spot them. Well done Citizen. The upper subdial indicates the charge level and I have never seen it come off the full charge mark but the batteries are still young. The middle subdial (9 o'clock position) presents a 24 hr clock face. It would be nice if this dial could be set to Zulu time while the main watch indicated local. Maybe this can be done? I still have not figured out all the features this thing brings to the fight. Resetting the time for different time zones is simple. Around the inside of the watch bezel are 3-letter representations of different major cities (time zones) around the globe. Pull the crown out to the first setting and the second hand moves to point to the current time zone by major city. Twist the crown and the second hand moves discretely from city to city until you're happy. Close the crown and the watch will reset itself automatically to the new time and date, daylight savings included. So simple. Here are some of the cities: NYC, RIO, LON, ATH, TYO, HKO, SYD, LAX, et al. All in all, this is a very nice watch for the price. I just wish it had split times so I could watch the Audis pull away from the Peugeots at le Mans.

i am very glad i bought this at $330, cuz days after my purchase, price went back up to $480!!! now the disclaimer... i usually only collect swiss mechanical watches, but where i work (downtown seattle), it is extremely uncool to wear a high end piece on your wrist. it makes you feel pretentious and people give you dirty looks as they judge and stereotype you; in a way, cheap watches are considered much cooler than brands like AP, PP, JLC, or rolex. in a hipster city like here, you will find that people tend to like you more when you wear a low cost piece on your wrist. definitely a culture shock unlike living in miami, LA, or NYC. let's get the bad out of the way first; the stainless bracelet is utter rubbish, fit and finish is crap and looks like crap. first thing i did was removing the stock bracelet and throwing it away. i was able to buy replacement straps for this piece; and there are tons of selections, from expensive to dirt cheap options. it looks best on dark navy blue rubber strap, but will work with any NATO of your choice. it's very fun to play around with different colors; and no matter what you pick, it will definitely look much better than the garbage stainless bracelet it comes with. apart from the bracelet, everything else points to pure aces. sapphire crystal looks great, no worse than my other higher end pcs; like rolex family of watches, there is no anti-reflective treatment on the outside, so it plays with the light well. the dial is excellently executed to very high quality and attention to detail. the hour markers and hands all move and stop with typical japanese precision, which is to say very good and very close to swiss precision. sure there are other minor downsides, the lume doesnt last very long at all, the pusher operation doesnt feel anywhere near as solid as a rolex daytona or an omega man-on-the-moon, the inner rotating ring (slide rule) is loose, and is not going to be precise like you would find on a breitling navitimer, and the crown operation feels flimsy and mushy; but let's remember this is a low cost piece, what i got for $330 is actually pretty damn impressive. first, it is nice never having to wind or set the watch, since this is solar powered and has atomic time seeking self adjusting feature. second, being quartz, this piece is as accurate as tourbillon mechanical watches, if not more accurate. thirdly, at $330, this piece is 1/10 the price of the cheapest watch in my collection, so i dont mind if i bang it up or scratch it up while taking the rail/metro in downtown. lastly, because it's quarts, and because it's cheap, there is never a need to send it back to manufacture for service. let's put that into perspective, all my mechanical watches go back to the manufacture for service once every 2-5 years depending on how often i wear that particular pc. average cost for the manufacture to inspect, clean, and lubricate one watch is $500-$1000 each time. so i am extremely excited this is a piece that is literally maintenance free! for the price, i love this piece, there is nothing i can say bad about it. and i plan to wear it at least a few days a week. ditch the bracelet, and enjoy the endless color combination with the strap. buy it, i guarantee you will love this too.

Excellent, good looking watch. Very accurate due to atomic time keeping. It is large, but if you are a big man you can handle it. The sun power will keep it going for decades I hope. It is my second Blue Angels sun powered watch. The first one lasted 22 years.