Oceanus Watch: Citizen Men's JR3080-51L Eco-Drive Blue Angels Watch Review

Average Reviews:
4.3 out of 5 stars

(More customer reviews)I purchased this watch because I wanted a solar-powered watch with analog-digital display (plus the usual things that go with a digital watch, i.e. alarms, stopwatch, and countdown timer). The only analog-digital solar watches I found included the Citizen Skyhawk, Citizen Sailhawk (JR4000 and JR4010), Citizen JR0006 (discontinued, but still available on some sites), the Casio atomic WVA430xxx (there are several incarnations, thus the 'x's'), Casio WVA510x, Casio AWS90x, and the Casio PAG60 line (watches that sport barometer, thermometer, and compass functions).The Casios (those I could find in stores) all seemed rather bulky and "plasticky."The discontinued JR0006 had a more primitive power management system and lacked a coordinated analog and digital display, and I didn't need the Sailhawk's yacht racing timer.I went with the Skyhawk in stainless, because I had read that titanium was more prone to surface injuries and I didn't think the weight would be a problem.The watch looks great and, indeed, the weight doesn't bother me, even though my benchpressing limit is probably about 20 pounds. The power save function really works. A moment after I took it out of the box, the hands started to spin around until they came to the right time; it had kept the time correctly for however many months or years it had been sitting in that box! It is NOT true, as many people have written, that this watch lacks luminous coatings, or that they lose their glow very quickly. The coatings seem very similar in brightness to those on my Seiko Diver's watch (which are very bright), and remain visible all night long. However, it IS true that the luminous regions are very small in area, so the overall impression is that the watch is a bit dim at night. The circular slide rule on the bezel is very cute. I'm not going to need it to calculate fuel consumption, but I will use it to calculate tips. There are a few things, however, that make this watch less than perfect.First, as others have observed, the watch face is attractive, but not particularly readable. The 24 hour and UTC subdials are adorable, but I can't see that I will ever need either (for any application that requires UTC, I would want to read the time off the more accurate digital display), and if the subdials weren't there the minute marks could have been made larger and more readable.Second, there's no backlight for the digital display, so the digital functions are useless at night. (Casio somehow manages to have a backlight in their solar-powered watches.) Third, it only works with full-hour time zones, so the watch isn't going to work properly in those parts of the world with half-hour time zones. Fourth, in most modes the two buttons are given over to the change-time zone function. If you want to do things like set the alarm or the countdown timer, you have to fiddle with the crown. But the crown is so beautifully protected that you pretty much have to remove the watch from your wrist before you can manipulate it. Frankly, I might need to change time zones once every couple of months, but I need to set alarms a couple of times a day, and it would have been better if the commonest operations had been the easiest to perform.Fifth, the countdown timer only goes to 99 minutes, which is too short for a lot of timer applications.The timer function display is actually redundant; Citizen might have been able to make better use of the LCD display to allow one to set countdown times in hours and minutes. Sixth, the alarm is very quiet. It won't wake anyone from sleep, and probably won't be heard in a noisy environment, either. In contrast, the alarm on my old Timex Expedition is many times louder, goes into a more insistent mode if ignored, and repeats after an interlude of a few minutes if not cancelled. In sum, buy this watch if you want an attractive analog-digital, solar-powered watch, but recognize that there is a lot of room for improvement, and something better is bound to come out, someday.

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Product Description:
Give a special gift to that special man with an eye on the sky with the Citizen Blue Angels JR3080-51L stainless steel watch that honors the Blue Angels, the legendary US Navy precision flying team, with an official Blue Angels insignia on the caseback. It's powered by Citizen's unique Eco-Drive, which absorbs sunlight and any artificial light through the crystal and dial to recharge the watch continuously. The fast-forward timekeeping features include time and calendar in twenty-two time zones, thirty cities, three world time alarms, a 99-minute countdown timer, one-touch interchangeable analog/digital time, and 1/100-second chronograph that measures up to 24 hours. The large round navy-blue bezel offers a bi-directional rotating slide rule with yellow triangle accents. The stainless steel bracelet band is composed of brushed and polished links. The navy blue dial background features large silver-tone hands and Arabic numerals. It also features water resistance to 100 meters (330 feet) and a scratch-resistant, non-reflective mineral crystal.

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