Image: A Citizen Eco-Drive Zenshin (AW0130-85L), and Citizen Classic Eco-Drive (AW0082-01A), Photo by Unattributed, License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Up until now I've only owned one Citizen watch. It is an Eco-Drive Pilot style watch, and I didn't like it. Why? Several of reasons:

• It was way over-sized for even my beefy wrist.
• The size makes it wear weird on the after-market strap I bought (I had to, the original didn't fit).
• The date window was confusing: it shows the day before and after the current date.
• Finally, the seconds hand was so thin it was basically invisible ninety-five percent of the time.

But still, I like the watch. The case is solid, and it's quite reliable. I just don't wear it as often as I could.

Recently, I was browsing Amazon, seeing if there was anything new in the watches that I was interested in when the Citizen Classic (AW0082-01A) caught my attention. I know I'd seen it a hundred times before, and thought it was nice looking, but just went past it. So, why did I stop this time? The combination of the cream dial and rose gold case was always attractive to me, and I don't have anything like it in my collection. Then the thought entered my mind: why don't you give Citizen a second try?

I mean, I didn't really have anything against Citizen after the first watch. I just hadn't bought anything else from them. And, to be honest, there has always been in the back of my mind a couple of other Citizen watches that I wanted. So, I made the decision to buy it.

And I'm really pleased with it. The strap fits, the watch lays down naturally on my wrist, and it's an overall nice watch. Granted, too many it's probably nothing special to write home about. However, for me, it fits my retro-vibe / modern mix style.

Then I started thinking about the other watch I'd thought was really cool looking when it came out, but I didn't want to pay the original price on it: the Zenshin. After looking around a bit, I found that they have come down a fair amount in price, and Citizen had introduced a few new models (mainly a brand collaboration).

This one took a bit more thought. Aside from the collaboration Zenshin, there are four colors: white, green, blue, and salmon. I ruled out the white pretty quickly. There isn't enough contrast between the hands and the dial for easy viewing. Of the remaining three I really wanted to go for the salmon. But, I had second thoughts: what if I didn't like the watch for some non-color related reason?

That meant I should go green or blue. I have both colors in my collection already. So, I went with the safer blue color. And I can't explain how happy this watch has made me. It's light with the titanium case and bracelet. The finishing is awesome, especially the polish in the middle of the links.

Honestly, I've barely had the Zenshin off my wrist since the day it came in. It's easily become one of my favorite watches, destined to join my Casio Lineage as my most frequently worn watches.

Now maybe someday I'll get that other Citizen watch I've been considering…

I have another pair of watches I'll be writing about soon. Basically, I saw someone I never expected to reference a watch I'd had my eye on for a couple of years. So, I decided to finally buy one. But more on that another day.

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Categories: #Features Tags: #watches, #wristwatches, #citizen, #ecodrive, #solar, #classic, #zenshin, #titanium License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

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