Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5294 in Watches
• Brand: Citizen
• Model: JR3000-51F
• Dimensions: 3.90" h x 4.40" w x 4.90" l, .95 pounds
• Band material: stainless-steel
• Bezel material: stainless-steel
• Case material: stainless-steel
• Clasp type: fold-over-push-button-clasp-with-safety
• Dial color: black
• Dial window material: Mineral
• Movement type: japanese-quartz
• Water-resistant to 330 feet

Features

• Ecologically friendly, light powered Eco-Drive Caliber C650 Japanese-quartz movement; Charges in natural sunlight or indoor light
• Max power reserve: 90 days to 4 Years with Power Save; Low charge warning: 1.5 days; Charge time from stop state to max charge: Incandescent Light - 29 hrs, Outdoors, Cloudy (10,000 Lux) - 9 hrs, Outdoors, Sunny (100,000 Lux) - 5 hrs
• Durable, hardened mineral crystal; Case diameter: 44 mm; Time and calendar in 22 time zones (30 cities); Three world-time alarm functions; One-touch interchangeable analog-digital times
• Stainless steel case; Black dial; 1/100 second chronograph measures up to 24 hours; 99 minute countdown timer; Rotating slide rule bezel; Screw back case
• Water-resistant to 330 feet (100 M)

Amazon.com Product Description
The Citizen Eco-Drive Eco-Drive Skyhawk Flight Chronograph is designed to soar with unbridled stealth precision. This men's Eco-Drive timepiece lifts off with time and calendar for 22 time zones, three world time alarms, 1/100 second chronograph that measures 24-hours, 99 Minute Countdown Timer, one-touch interchangeable analog/digital timing, rotating slide rule bezel, and power saver function all within a highly polished stainless steel case.

Summary of Features:

• Time and calendar in 22 time zones (30 cities)
• Three world time alarms
• 1/100 second chronograph measures up to 24 hours of elapsed time
• 99 minute countdown timer
• One-touch interchangeable analog/digital times
• Rotating slide rule bezel
• Screw-back case

The Citizen Watch Brand

The company was established in 1924. The founding fathers selected the name Citizen so it would be "Close to the Hearts of People Everywhere" and soon after adopted the company’s formal name, Citizen Watch Company.

During the last seventy-five years Citizen has expanded its business throughout the world and has achieved recognition as the global brand. The past twenty-five year period has coincided with the company’s dramatic rise to its current position as the world’s largest watchmaker, a distinction Citizen has held every year since 1986.

Beyond sheer size, Citizen is also recognized as a worldwide leader in advanced technology. From the world’s slimmest LCD watch to the first voice recognition watch and the world’s first professional dive watch with an electronic depth sensor, Citizen’s record of "world’s firsts" is unmatched.

More recently, Citizen has staked out a new position as the leader in Ecologically Friendly timekeeping with its Eco-Drives watches that are light powered. With models ranging from dress models to sports models to professional dive watches, Citizen Eco-Drive runs continuously in any kind of natural or artificial light for a lifetime of use. Fueled by light, it never needs a battery.

Eco-Drive Frequently Asked Questions (See the full Citizen Eco-Drive FAQ here)

How can you tell if the Eco-Drive watch is getting enough light?
In normal use, the watch displays the time and the sweep-second hand moves in one second intervals. A very important feature of Eco-Drive is the Low Charge Warning Mode which as a result of low battery voltage, causes the second hand to jump two seconds at a time (while still keeping correct time).

How long will an Eco-Drive watch run after it is fully charged?
If your watch is put away where no light is available to it while in a fully charged state, depending on the model, it will run for from 45 days to 5 years.

How can the Eco-Drive watch be recharged?
Besides sunlight, it can be safely charged by exposing it to a fluorescent desk lamp, with the dial (face) up and within about 8 inches or an incandescent lamp (regular light bulb) no closer than 20 inches. Never use a halogen lamp since the heat generated by it can cause damage to your watch. The most efficient and the quickest is in direct bright sunlight (not windowsill) and never on the dashboard of a car.

Customer Reviews

A handsome analog with the functions of a digital
For years I've worn a cheap digital watch because I couldn't find anything nicer looking that incorporated the same functions as my digital. Analog watches offer a more attractive timepiece, but you usually have to sacrifice the handy functions I had grown used to having. For me, the Eco-Drive Skyhawk combines the best of both the analog and digital worlds.

The Skyhawk has two small LCD's that give it all the same functions as my digital and even add a few more. You access those different functions by turning the winding crown (which actually doesn't even serve that function on the Skyhawk since the watch is powered by a solar cell beneath the faceplate). Turning the crown rotates the tiny mode hand on the bottom-most dial and points it at the abbreviated name of the function you've selected.

The functions displayed on the LCD's are: Time (hour, minutes and seconds on the right display with the time zone on the left); Calendar (day, month and day of the week on the right, time zone on the left); Alarm (there are three separate alarms-hour, minutes and `on' and `off' on the right, time zone on the left); Chronograph (up to 99' 99" on the right, the left indicates split time, etc.); Timer (counts down from 99' 99"); and Set, which is for setting up the time, date, etc. for the watch. You can program in customized names for the time zones, if you choose. For example, instead of LAX for Pacific Time, I have SEA (for Seattle) programmed for my time zone. Since the analog hands show my local time, I leave the LCD in Calendar mode, but you could also have a different time zone's time or date set to display.

The other two small dials show a 24-hour UTC clock (Universal Time Constant-same as London time) in the upper-right dial (with minute and hour hands) and a 24-hour clock (with just an hour hand) for your local time zone in the upper-left dial. My watch arrived with the proper date and time already programmed in. I just had to set the watch to my time zone.

There is a slide-rule bezel that rotates around the faceplate and apparently can be used to calculate fuel and oil consumption for an aircraft. I didn't notice anything in the instructions that explained how to use this, but I'm not a pilot or engineer and don't have a use for it anyway.

The Skyhawk ships with a CD-ROM that has narrator walk you through the steps for setting up your watch and using the various functions. These identical tutorials can be accessed from Citizen's web page here: http://www.citizenwatch.com/us/frame_noflash.html. There is also a printed manual that covers the same information.

Citizen claims this watch will never need a new battery in your lifetime. The Skyhawk recharges its internal battery by way of a solar panel beneath the faceplate. When you look closely, you can see that the faceplate is made of a dark but semi-transparent material like the lenses of sunglasses. With normal wear, it should keep itself charged with ambient light whether indoors or out. Even if denied a light source, Citizen claims a fully-charged watch can go four months before running out of power. The left LCD displays up to three horizontal bar to indicate how charged the watch is.

I only found two negatives with this watch. There is one function it does not have that my $10 digital watch does, and that's a light for reading time in the dark. Lights take up a lot of battery power, so I can understand why Citizen opted not to include one on a solar-powered watch, but I do miss it sometimes at night. The numbers on the faceplate and the analog hands do have a glow-in-the-dark material on them, but it's still not as easy to read the time in the dark as it is with my digital which has a blue backlight.

The other negative (for some people) may be the size. This is a fairly good-sized watch on your wrist. It's a little wider than most men's watches, and probably a little thicker, too. That said, I think the faceplate size and overall design of the watch is such that it doesn't look too big on my just-under-medium-sized wrists. But it's a personal call, and I can see how some might find this too big and bulky for their tastes. You may want to visit a local watch dealer to take a look before ordering.

You should know that there are three different versions of this watch with varying price tags (all metal, mixed metal/rubber wristband, and a Blue-Angels-commemorative version). Each version is available in either stainless steel or titanium. Mine is the all-metal stainless-steel version. I weighed the pros and cons of titanium and decided against it. Relative to stainless steel, titanium is more resistant to corrosion, has greater tensile strength and is lighter. But I can't imagine any scenario in which I'm going to need those advantages. The watch's weight is a non-issue to me. Once it's on my wrist, I hardly even notice it's there. The disadvantages of titanium are it costs significantly more and has a slightly darker hue and less luster than stainless steel. Titanium is also a softer metal, so it should be less resistant to abrasions.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this watch. It couples a handsome, understated elegance with all of the functions I want in a timepiece.

You'll have to size the watch's wristband when you get it (unless you have very large wrists). You can do it yourself if you have the proper tool. There are tiny pins holding the different links together. You need an equally small tool to push them through from one side to the other. Take note of the arrows on the inside of the wristband that show the direction you should push the pins. If you don't size it yourself, be sure to point those arrows out to the person that sizes it for you. I took my watch to a jewelry counter at a respected clothing store to seek help. Unfortunately, the woman who helped was lacking in hand strength and ended up scuffing up several of the metal links before I knew what she was doing (yes, brushed stainless steel will scratch). If you can find the tool to do it, I recommend sizing it yourself to avoid the aggravation I went through.

How to use slide rule
OK. For those who bought this watch because it looked neat, but had no clue what it is to own an aviator watch, here is an example of how to use the slide rule.

1. Lets say you are at a restaurant, and your bill comes out to $55. You wander what is 15% tip. Take the outer dial and align the number 15 on the outer dial to 10 on the inner dial. That will be your tip percentage. If you want to give 20% align 20 to the inner 10. Now, find 55 on inner dial. You should see about 82 for the corresponding outer dial. Divide 82 by 10. You get $8.20 which is your tip. Now, when you take some one out for a date, you could look like you actually use the bezel.

2. TAX can be calculated the same way. Just align the tax percentage on the outer dial to 10 on the inner dial.

3. You are on a road trip with rug rats. You have 200 miles to go and you are traveling at 70mph. The back seat monsters asks "are we there yet." You move 70 on the outer dial to the top arrow, where inner dial is 60. Find 20 on the outer dial. Corresponding inner dial is the amount of minutes to your destination. In this case 170. You are not done. Check the inside of the watch. on the outer edge of the face, you should see hour marks. 170 should correspond to 2:50 hours. Now tell the monsters that it is going to be another 2hours and 50 minutes so go to sleep.

I hope these will be useful for someone. As for negative reviews I have seen,

1. If you don't realize that almost all watches that are considered higher class than Casio Sports watches don't have lights, you don't deserve anything like this. Are you going to give negative reviews to Rolex because it does not have a light?

2. This is aviator watch guys! If you make them smaller, you will not be able to read or use the slide rule. If you can't realize that, buy different watch.

3. There is about a page explaining how to use the slide rule. But, since this is aviator watch, they probably expect you to know how to use E6B. Otherwise, hope my review helped.

Despite the cons, I would recommend!
PROS:
- It is a Citizen!
- 5 year warranty
- very nice looking
- eco-drive system: never needs batteries
- complete world time (DST per zone, etc).

CONS:
- no light (but that is due to the eco-drive)
- no hourly alarm
- for me, its is difficult to pull out the crown without loosening the bracelet
- very easy to scratch (and they say the titanium version is even more soft!)

For an average male wrist, it is not too big nor too heavy.