Cheap Citizen Eco-Drive Men's Skyhawk Chronograph Watch #JR3090-58L (Watch) Price

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Customer Reviews of Citizen Eco-Drive Men's Skyhawk Chronograph Watch #JR3090-58L

PMV65-2242 is the Skyhawk only for Japan
I recently bought a PMV65-2242 and would like to share my impressions and opinions with you. Where to start? <
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>*) Weight. The thing weighs a ton. And I bought the titanium version; I can only imagine what the stainless one is like. One arm's got to hang a couple of inches lower than the other. Good thing I wanted a heavy watch, 'cause this one fits the bill to a T. (My titanium Navihawk is so light I thought the seller had ripped me off and that the casing was hollow...) <
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>*) Size. It's exactly the size indicated in all the propaganda, but it just doesn't look as large to me as I thought it would. For me, the larger the better, so I was unpleasantly surprised. <
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>*) The anti-glare glass is quite nice. It's a pain with my Navihawks to wiggle my wrist around in strong lighting just to see what time it is. It's not perfect, but it is much better. <
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>*) It glows in the dark just great! I can really see what time it is when the light's been out for hours, something that's a weak point with my Navitimers (I own three). But I am a pilot and must assess this watch to be great for my pre-flight work - at home at the table. In a cockpit the vibrations and lack of light make this unit in my opinion worthless. My Aristo Aviat E6-B flight computer - a circular slide rule of 13 cm (5½ inch) diameter - doesn't fit on my wrist, but is 100 times better, even in a cramped cockpit. <
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>*) The LCD display is illuminated. This works very well and should have been on the Navitimer. <
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>*) The minute hand doesn't click every 20 seconds like on the Navihawk (and on my Breitling); it is constantly in motion. (I think that's even neater that way, but some other users may not.) <
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>*) The Navihawks were first issued in approx. 1994. That means their technology is not exactly fresh and up-to-date, but on the other hand it certainly does not mean it is not good. Let me list a few really neat features from the Navihawk that Citizen decided to go downhill on and not to build into their series "PMV65-2242" (just where DOES Citizen get these ridiculous IDs from? - it reminds me of the Monty Python bit: "...after 6 p.m. RST22-5578..."): <
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>*) Are the big hands in the way of the LCD window when you're trying to read it or do some setting or other? No problem: it is soooo sexy with the Navihawks to press a button and have these two hands swing up to 12 and stay there until you're done. Then each goes its own way back where it belongs when you press the button again. Of course it keeps the correct time internally. This new model can't do that. Why not? Not only is it not sexy, the hands really *are* in the way if you're trying to do any work with the LCD window between 2 and 4 o'clock real time, because the hour hand covers up the window. And if it's between x:10 and x:20 real time, the minute hand completely blocks your view. <
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>*) You can't make the UTC timezone in the LCD display go away. With the Navitimer you could make it disappear just like any other timezone you didn't want to have cluttering up your display, but with the new model it is always there, whether you want it or not. A step backward. <
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>*) And then there is the LCD window itself. On the Navihawk it was quite well-sized (and easy to read!), but on the PMV65-2242 it's roughly *half* the size, although the face of the watch itself is almost 30% larger. They decided that having an extra-big knobbie at 3:00 o'clock (I guess it's for those customers who don't know that that position means 3:00 o'clock...) was better than a large LCD window, so they made the LCD window half as big. The only thing that's noticeably bigger on the new model is the font of the brandname "Citizen." That's almost twice as big. I don't think they asked a customer what he or she felt was more important. <
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>*) The *background* color of the LCD display is noticeably darker than on the Navihawks, so discerning the black numbers and letters on it is even more difficult. Why, why, why??? <
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>*) The smaller analogue dials are larger on the Navihawk than on the PMV65-2242, although the latter has almost 30% more surface area to work with. Any idea why Citizen did that? I don't have a clue. <
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>*) Can anybody tell me why the PMV65-2242 has a second hand, when one centimeter away there is a permanent LCD display telling you exactly what second you're at? I suppose it's for when you have the display mode set to calendar or if you want to see how close you are to the time-correcting radio sender (like you don't know this anyway...), but I think a watch without a second hand (like the Navihawks) is great. (With my Breitling you can press a button and it either goes around and around once a minute like a good second hand should, or it jumps to 12 and just sits there. That's the way it can - and should - be done: let the customer decide.) <
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>*) A criticism of the Navihawk as well is simply this: why is there a 24-hour analogue dial with just an hour hand telling you whether it's a.m. or p.m.? Anybody ever think about looking out the window? I really do know if it's 3 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning; I don't need a complete dial to tell me that. In my opinion this dial is a total waste. What they could have done is allow us to set that dial to a different time zone, allowing us to see three time zones at once, without even pressing a button. Or to a half-hour time zone like India or Nova Scotia. But there it is, permanently fixed to the large analogue hour-hand. In case you're in a windowless room, I guess, and can't remember when you slept last. <
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>*) Here's a secret for those of you who've read this far: You *can* set both of these watches to indicate 3 (three!) different 24-hour timezones - all at the same time. No pushing buttons, no twisting knobs, no computations in your head. How? Simple: set the zero setting of the analogue UTC dial not to 24, but rather to the timezone you want, measured *from* UTC. San Diego for example is eight hours behind UTC in the winter, so you set the UTC analogue dial to 16 o'clock. Set your big hands to Frankfurt and your digital to Sydney and you're done. All three 24-hour timezones at the same time. Granted, you have to re-set the zero-setting of your UTC dial when SD goes to daylight savings and again when it goes back to winter time, but resetting it twice a year is a small price. The point is: it can be done without visiting a watchmaker. (I live in Frankfurt and my relatives are in San Diego and Sydney - this is why I looked for and bought this watch.) <
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>*) And here's the last nit I want to pick: Every 24-hour analogue watch/clock I have ever seen is wrong by 180°. They all start with 24 at the top when it should be at the bottom of the face! Let's get philosophical for just a moment: what does the hour hand on a 24-hour face really do? It points to the sun as it travels through the sky. And where is the sun at 12 o'clock noon? Right: straight up. Not straight down. So in my example above, I set my UTC analogue zero-position for San Diego not to 16 o'clock, but rather to 4 o'clock and simply ignore the printed numbers on the dial - they're off by 180° anyway... <
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>All in all? I am really not sure, if I had it to do again, if I would lay out this kind of money for a watch with this amount of things wrong with it. Why did Citizen discontinue some really good features and make some really obvious errors in this watch? It looks to me like they are setting their customers up for the next new model in a few years, with these obvious failings repaired and maybe some new ones built in, but one that we'll all want to buy again. I don't know about you, but that thought doesn't sit too well with me. <
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>Gruß, <
>Erich

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No thanks!
Oooh, Blue Angels, yellow markers. Wouldn't it be cool to get a Blue Angels watch? NO! I actually did purchase it (and returned it.) I will admit that the watch did look really cool on line and even when I received it. So what is the problem? This watch is waaaay too complicated. the slide rule feature sounds better than it is practical. The manual explains how to use it by teaching you how to calculate flight related data. Sorry, my bad, I'm not a pilot. The calculations are not something I worry about when shooting down enemy flyers in Ace Combat. Alright, let's say that next years version of Ace Combat will require me to make important flight calculations before I take off, the problem is that the numbers of the slide rule are miniscule and I can barely read them. <
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>Also, do I really need to know the time in Sidney, or Rio or Tokyo or the dozen or so other Cities that are pre-programmed into the watch. If I could afford to travel to all of them, would I be wearing a Citizen? The dial to let you know which function you are in, i.e.; time, chrono, date etc. is too small to read as well. There is no perpetual calendar, I need to fiddle with the stem every month. you can't set the hands, you set the time digitally and the hands will follow (this isn't a big complaint, but it's hard to see the time digitally because the window for it is so small.) <
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>the eco-drive feature of no batteries is great and the navy blue face of the watch is nice, but really, the watch is a mess. if you really wanted all the features this watch has, a calculator watch by Casio would probably be better at one tenth of the cost, although no one would mistake you for a pilot wearing a geeky casio calculator watch.

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Love it, but to crowded
A little to heavy,and hard to see at night, and some times day light, for Me; with good eyes??... Wonderful, It will last a long time, it's a" tank "