Customer Reviews

Citizen Men's BJ2004-08E Eco-Drive Aqualand Two-Tone Black Rubber Strap Dive Watch

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the second Citizen Eco-Drive watch I have purchased, having been very pleased with my Caliber 2100. I was looking for a nice dive watch with an analogue dial, a rotating bezel, and good luminosity. I have a fondness for mechanical watches, but for sport diving I wanted a cool gadget with a depth guage to use as a back-up, and those only come in electronic watches. Since I already trusted Citizen's workmanship and design, I picked this one out.

The watch has a tough stainless steel case which is large enough to be a good dive watch but not as ridiculously large as some of the ugly watches on the market. The case is not very thin, but because of the design with its beveled case back and bezel ring, it feels thin and it's not a problem putting my hand in my pocket. The two-tone rotating bezel has a solid, snappy feel to it, but is not too tight to turn with dive gloves on. The function buttons should not be pushed under water, but there is no reason to as the depth guage activates automatically when wet and the bezel is external. The brass crown is a strong screw-down device which sticks out a bit far, which is good for grasping but bad for catching on things.

The dial is a bit busy, but the minute and hour hands are not too hard to find at a glance, and the luminious hands and markers are very bright and highly visible. Unlike the Caliber 2100, however, the luminous paint is a green color rather than blue, and while it is very bright, it does not stay bright as long. In deep water it's still easy to see and shining a flashlight on it for a few seconds brightens it back up.

The date is easy to read, and so is the red multi-function hand, which serves as the depth guage needle when submerged, when dry as a battery charge indicator, and in chrono mode as a stopwatch second hand. The bottom subdial is the small seconds indicator for normal time-telling, and the left-hand subdial is a 24-hr hand. The top subdial is the chronograph minutes dial, which runs to a maximum of 50 minutes.

The chronograph function is odd since it's not very useful. To activate the chrono mode you have to hold down the lower function button for a few seconds and then wait for the multifunction hand to wind around to the zero position, and only then can you start the chrono by pushing the upper function button. The chrono only runs for 50 minutes. If you don't start it after a few minutes it unwinds and goes back to normal mode. This means you can't start it quickly and you can't keep it at the ready for very long. Fortunately, this function is not needed for diving but is only an extra feature.

The rubber strap is long enough to fit around the wrist of most wet suit arms, although a thick wet suit and gloves together make it difficult. There is a no-decompression limits table on the strap, a sturdy stainless buckle and two stainless keepers.

I've found the watch to be very accurate, as expected for an Eco Drive. It's comfortable and fairly good-looking, and the anti-reflective mineral crystal is effective. I put it to the test in deep, murky, ice-cold quarry lake water where I took it to a maximum depth of 75 feet and repeated shallower dives thereafter for 2 days. The depth guage worked as advertised, matching my dive rig guage, and the last dive recorded feature also worked great. The dial was acceptably readable even in the deep murkiness. I've worn it in swimming pool and once I took it into a hot spa before I realized what I was doing, but it didn't seem to harm it, although I don't recommend that kind of abuse for any watch.

I am very pleased with this watch. It's not as upscale or fashionable as a Tag Huer or an Omega Seamaster, but it's got a quality high-accuracy Citizen quartz movement, it's light-powered so you don't have to open the watertight case for a battery change, and it's got the depth guage, which is one of the most useful and cool complications a dive watch can have. Even if you already have one of the Swiss luxury divers, this might make a good solid back-up watch for the next dive trip, and it's not bad-looking in the office, either.

only had it for a short time, but it seems like a great watch. chronograph is only in min/sec increments (no tenths), so if you're looking for that you'll be disappointed. stays at the "LV1" charge-level most of the time, but will sneak up to "LV2" on a sunny day. haven't used the dive function (and don't really plan to). seconds hand is kinda small, but the 24-hr hand is a nice touch. bought this watch to replace my last citizen watch, which i purchased in january 1988 and finally retired it in march 2008, so i hope this one will last as long.

I really want to like this watch and if I dove a lot I might really like it. I love the Eco part of it. It holds a charge plenty well. It's great to think I don't need to change a battery for a decade (well see)
What I absolutely HATE is that it has a very strange to me at least chronograph (stopwatch, timer) feature.
To put it into the "stopwatch" mode you hold down a button and the second hand makes three sweeps of the dial taking about 10 seconds to zero itself and then you can start timing an event. If you don't use it within a few minutes it resets to the other mode. Now if thats not bad enough when you are done say timing a 18 minute event when you push the button to re-zero the second hand must revolve around the face 18 times to re-zero. This takes about four seconds, maybe three for each of the 18 revolutions. It takes waaaayyy to long. It is worthless for timing a sudden event-!!! It should be clearly stated some place in the manual or info about the watch but guess what --- nope, not mentioned anywhere. I have written Citizen with no response.
O well, live and learn. I just hope this review helps people if the are looking at this watch. Again, nice watch in every respect except the one mentioned above.

I have owned the Eco-Drive Aqualand dive watch for 7 months now. Honestly I am surprised at how favorable the reviews are. This watch has a number of shortcomings.

The left sub-dial is a 24 hour dial. This is a useless function and a complete waste of dial "real estate". Not only is the dial hard to read, it is not connected with the chronograph. (More on that below). If 24 hour ("Military") time is important to you, you are going to make the effort to learn it without needing to look at a sub dial. If you are like me and only use 24 hour time occasionally, it is much easier on the eyes to count the hours on the main dial rather than use the sub.

The chronograph is only a 50 minute chrono. Who came up with this? Industry standard is an hour. Also, as has been mentioned, to activate the chrono, you have to hold down the lower right pusher. The manual says for two seconds. I have found it takes up to 5 seconds and sometimes multiple attempts for the chronograph to activate. You will then need to wait for the multi-function hand to spin in to position - about 3 complete sweeps. All of this takes time. If you need to start timing something quickly or just want to easily time something, this chronograph falls short.

Dive Functions:

The water sensor works well. The depth gauge keeps accurate depth and it is not too difficult to read the depth. The depth scale runs along the outside of the main dial. And I find it easier to read while diving. On the surface it is not bad either.

The dive recall function is great and is what you would expect from this kind of watch.

Where I find the worst design consideration is in the timing of your dive duration. The watch will automatically sense when you are in the water, go in to dive mode and automatically keep track of your depth. After your dive you can recall the max depth of your last dive. The watch does not automatically do any of these things for timing the duration of your dive. At the start of your dive, you must wind the outside chrono dial to the correct position. At the end of your dive, if you want to recall the duration, you must remember to check the watch and take note of the duration before getting out of the water. For a watch of this caliber and purpose, there is no excuse for this. Why have a water sensor to automatically put the watch in dive mode, if you are going to have to put your hand on the watch to set the chrono? The same with depth recall. Why have depth recall and no duration recall? A *much* better use of the 24 hour dial would have been to use it for dive duration and duration recall. Maybe there is a mechanical reason for this. But the folks at Citizen are very smart. I'm sure they could have figured this out.

The watch keeps excellent time.

I replaced the band with a thinner velcro band. The rubber band that comes with the watch is of excellent quality. But it is very thick. I work with computers and typing with this band was just not comfortable. Replacing the band easily fixed this. I do not have any problems with the crown getting stuck on things.

The watch is solidly built and is comfortable to wear with long sleeves. It would not be comfortable with long sleeves and the factory band.

I would recommend this watch. But unfortunately it lacks in the dive functions area.

I like this because, while it has the "bling" factor and looks great, it's not so huge that it seems overstated. The metal strap bands tend to catch my armhair a little, but the rubber band is comfortable.

The watch was everything I expected. Don't use for diving. Bought for its attractiveness. My only criticism is the rubber band, which is too long, but difficult to shorten. My other 2 Citizen watches are perpetuals. This watch is not, but easier to operate. Only occasional adjustment is date of month. Being light powered, not needing battery replacement is a great feature.

I like the fact that there is no battery to replace. The only negative is that it is a little hard to see the time in the dark.

I really like this watch, it's not bad looking and does the job it is designed for. The face is a little small but you can still see it while diving, my only complaint is in dive mode it is only good for around 20 minutes before it requires a full recharge, this limits your multi tank dives if you expect to count on this time piece for your dives. This is also a good secondary depth gauge.

Very good watch to for a general purpose watch. I previously owned the older model of the aqualand from 1999, and had nothing but smooth sailing with it. The only problem I would say is that there are not more local service centers in the US, even though there main facility is in CA. Hopefully with the solar battery, it will last longer than the previous model.

This is a greatest dive watch you can own and very cool too. Navy SEALS use to wear this watch until Chuck Norris told them that they were not cool enough to wear a watch like this, one SEAL protested and Chuck Norris immediately round house kicked him in the face, he thanked Mr. Norris, pick up his Oakley's and took the watch off. Now they wear the Citizen Men's BJ2115-07E Eco-Drive Depth Meter Chronograph Imperial Rubber Dive Watch.

This is the one of the coolest most functional watches you can own whether you are a married dad driving you wife and kids to the beach for the day, or you are a Navy SEAL flying in to the remote areas of Pakistan to shoot wanted terrorist in the head in the middle of the night. This watch has it all; Eco-Driven so you never have to replace the battery, dive functions with 300m depth rating, cool looks and sex appeal, just be careful of Chuck.