Thoughts on Seiko Astron?

[se9boy]

I love the looks and have hankered after one of these for a few years now, I’m thinking of buying one for daily use.

Any owners opinions please? Is titanium a real weight benefit over stainless steel? Are they a bulky watch to wear?

I literally wear my current stainless steel watch 24/7 so I don’t think I’ll find the size / weight an issue.

Only problem for me is the number of different designs, so many to chose from - what do you have?

Many thanks, Steve.

Edited by se9boy on Sunday 7th October 22:34

[thehawkswoops]

Been honest most people hate them. I think some are okay but very expensive and you could buy some niicer stuff for the money or much less.
Hey but if you like em, go for it.

[seefarr]

I've had a Citizen Atomic for about 5 years and it is built like a fine looking tank. It gets time from long wave radio rather than GPS but it's always been able to pick up a signal for me. Citizen also do a range of GPS time watches that could be worth looking at too - you might be able to save a packet. Or get two of them!

[Mykap]

I've owned mine since 2013. Its been worn virtually everyday since purchase. I'm not a careful owner so its been on my wrist while working and its received a fair share of rough treatment including being in ships holds, on my wrist while chopping wood, hammering and operating power tools, swimming and cycling. Its condition is as good as new. Here is a picture from today..



Yes the titanium is a huge weight advantage over steel, its a large watch but you hardly know its there. The titanium is also incredibly scratch resistant. The size can cause issues when wearing shirts with cufflinks but hey who cares!

I travel a lot and have to change time zones frequently and for that purpose it's ideal. I think its a good looking watch as do many people who have commented on it.

I have always bought Seiko's as they were always the first choice for merchant ship navigators due to there accuracy and reliability for the price (this was paramount in the days before GPS when you relied on a sextant and chronometer to find your position at sea, often we would simply use a Seiko as a deck watch referenced to the ships chronometer), so I'm biased....

The solar battery is fine and has never caused issues. My only criticisms are that you have to manually adjust for DST (surely that could have been programmed in) and the hands can be hard to see in darkness (I believe this has been addressed in the later models with more luminous material on the hands).

Never regretted the purchase. Love the thing!

[SturdyHSV]

Mykap said:

My only criticisms are that you have to manually adjust for DST (surely that could have been programmed in)

It may be because the shifting rules are different depending on where you are in the world (which it does know at least and so again could have been programmed) but also they can change over time, so by trying to be clever, they could end up producing a watch that then randomly adjusts its time wrongly if someone decides they want different daylight savings rules.

[Sunday Drive]

Thread resurrection! Did you buy one Steve?

I’m thinking about buying one of these as a travel watch.




Does anyone own one? What do you think of it? [url]

[Sporky]

I have two on my "maybe next watch" list, the SBXY079 and the SBXY033. Both radio rather than GPS.