Customer Reviews

Citizen Men's BL5290-59E Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar Alarm Chronograph Watch

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My husband's review of his new watch:
I have been searching for a reasonable "divers style" watch which incorporates an alarm. I have had several and they usually work well until after the first battery change; follow the battery change with a dip in the pool and watch-death has been the typical result. The Citizen Eco-Drive is a great solution and I am very happy with it; I eagerly look forward to not having to change batteries. The watch is good looking (male opinion) and works well with a few idiosyncrasies:
- the alarm is very quiet; I have not heard it yet, unless I am already awake. This is disappointing, but not unexpected based on reviews from others. Citizen should work on this and consider having the alarm repeat after its first short burst; a second "blast" might help stir one from slumber.
- the crown tends to turn from rubbing on my wrist and change the function from "time" to Chronometer to "Local-time" to "alarm". Easily corrected but can complicate a quick glance to check the current time. Some way of shielding the crown, or making it less prone to accidental turning would be convenient.
- I like the "local time" function that allows you to reset to another time zone; it works pretty well and basically resets the hour hand only. This is handy if you travel, especially to areas multiple time zones away.
- resetting the watch, or changing functions is a bit entertaining, if you are easily amused, as any changes seem to result in extended periods during which the hour and minute hands race around the face of the watch until stopped at the desired point.
- I was not too interested in the Chronometer function as I have trouble reading the small dial on the watch. I have used it and it is straightforward, but would have been happy without that function.
I like my new watch very much; I wish the alarm was louder.

I would love to give this watch 4.5 stars. great not perfect, for 250 i could ask for more but wouldn't get it.
the main reason i got this watch was b/c I wanted a watch that looked good and was reliable. Before this i had a few swatches, all their faces got scratched quickly but worse than that their band kept breaking. They had metal bracelets, but they would only last about a month each. I have had this watch for about 2 months no band problems to report.

Pros: looks like an omega for a fraction of the cost,
Has more functions than omega. its has an alarm and an alt time.
the rotating bezel is a nice touch.
yellow on black is awsome.
Rotating bezel is great as a quick alarm(without the sound)

Cons: The alarm is quiet, tied it both awake and sleeping. could hear awake but wouldn't wake me up.

Other: the picture doesn't do it justice.
Hey Citizen listen up, make the 24 hour clock on the top left tell the alt time. instead of retelling the current time.
on a positive not the crown needs to be pulled out one click in order to change the mode. some people reviewing other perpetual calendar watches said that
their wrist would accidentally change the mode, with this model or (at least the one i got) that can't happen. i don't know maybe Citizen heard the
complaints and changed the watch a bit.
250 is a lot of money in this economy but its less than 3k and the watch itself is better than a guess that would go for about the same price.
I love watching the minute man move a quarter tick for ever 15 sec.

This Citizen Chronograph is everything it was advertised to be. A great looking timepiece, perfect weight and very, very accurate. The Eco-Drive technology is incredible in that the watch never needs a battery and remains charged primarily on room light. The Amazon service was superior, the item shipped as scheduled and was delivered as promised. All in all, a very plesant experience.

This is my first Citizen that I just recently bought. I¡¦ve been wearing it daily for 2 weeks already and must say that this will definitely be the watch from my collection of 4 that will get most of the ¡§wrist time¡¨.
First of all it looks fantastic. The Black bezel and black face make perfect contrast with white and yellow hands.
The case is not too big and not too small. Just right for me being relatively thin and tall.
The initial set up took some time as the hands were misaligned and were not pointing at ¡§zero¡¨ marks for the Chrono and other functions, but it wasn¡¦t too complicated and following manual took about 15minutes to get everything just right.
The quality of the case is visibly better than the Chinese made bracelet but not that noticeable.

I like watching how the hands speed around when functions are changed although it¡¦s a somewhat lengthy process if your alarm is set far away from the current hour. Also, the second hand stops at ¡§12¡¨ whenever it doesn¡¦t receive enough light (i.e. under the sweater sleeve) and it catches up to the normal second position whenever it¡¦s re-exposed to light again. It¡¦s quite amusing to watch this multiple times a day º

I don¡¦t think I¡¦ll be using much of the added functions, especially now when cell phones have both alarms and stop watches that are easier to use and give results that are easier to read. The second time feature may come in handy but requires setting it up ahead of time so it may not work very well for frequent flyers as you can adjust your local ¡§main¡¨ time on the watch exactly the same way.

The only two negative points I have are around the crown and its functions.
First of all, as others have mentioned, the watch switches between functions on its own if the crown gets moved by the movements of your wrist/hand. Yes it can get pretty annoying especially if it moves to the Alarm setting as getting back to the ¡§time¡¨ function may take a minute or more of automatic hand spin.
Second, the crown itself is rather sharp on the edge and it hurts when it rubs the top of my hand. It was quite annoying in first days but now my skin must have adapted and it¡¦s not so obvious anymore during regular hand movements.

Overall, it¡¦s a good watch with awesome appearance and great quality timepiece that will never need a battery and calendar correction. If Citizen eliminated the 2 shortcomings listed above this would be a true home run of a watch.

I was looking for a suitable daily wear watch for both dress up/down situations. My usual watch is a Tag-Heuer Aquaracer followed by a Tudor Oyster Submariner and on occasion I wear my Seiko automatic diver watch. This is a bulletproof watch. Great value for the money and doesn't require batteries or servicing unlike the TAG and the Tudor. The long energy reserve time is also nice since I switch wearing my watches. Definitely a best value purchase!

Looks much better than in the pix. VERY easy to read dial-day or night. Very accurate. Like it better than the SKYHAWK I had for eight years. Simple to use. Alarm is much too quiet. Almost useless.

QUALITY: PURE CITIZEN:
Citizen Men's Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar Alarm Chronograph Watch #BL5290-59E

It's a wonderful watch,it looks beautiful,the functions are also good!But there is one button that has no function.Maybe it's just for the balance of the shape!Overall,it is a good watch!

I gave this watch 5 stars for a reason.That reason is that you get an Omega look alike watch from Amazon for 250 bucks.Citizen makes decent watches, I've had this watch for a week the and it's been very accurate.I almost had to send it back, when I first got it the minute and hour hands weren't moving, while the second hand was moving normally.Thinking that the second hand would move jumping 2 seconds when it's not fully charged I thought that it was defective.It took 3 days of of charging under a lamp at night and by the window in the daytime.Also you have to keep the upper button pushed while you rotate the wheel to adjust it.It's pretty complicated to set up but once you learn how to do it it stick with you.As for it's design I can't ask for any better for this amount of money, I mean you can go out and buy an Oceanus for a grand or an Omega for about 5 or six grand and honestly you'll get the same product.The only thing that bothers me about it is that it has no day with the number of the month but I've seen Rolex watches without even a day on them.Other than that I would hope that Citizen will change the place of the winder to a side so it won't bother your wrist.Overall a very nice watch that will last you for a long time and won't have to screw with it all the time to adjust it.To set this watch just charge it for about 2 or 3 days and follow the instructions on the video .Do a reset and then adjust this watch.