Mar 18, 2009 05:24 PM
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What Swiss means to mechanical and automatic movements, Japanese means to the quartz ones. Citizen, Casio and Seiko are the major stakeholders in the quartz industry. It is said that out of every 4 new watch purchases world wide, 1 is a Citizen. So, in terms of volumes, Citizen is one of the largest watch manufacturers if not the largest.
Citizen is most famed for its Eco Drive series which is a clean source of energy and don't use disposable batteries to power up the watch. Alternatively,battery is charged by solar energy. Eco Drive is to Citizen as G-Shock is to Casio and Spring Drive is to Seiko.
Though Citizen is now primarily into quartz movements but once it was also famous for its mechanical and automatic movements. The famous Miyota mechanical movement is owned by Citizen and is still outsourced to many other brands including our very own HMT. HMT uses primarily the same Miyota movement in its mechanical and automatic range with some modifications over a period of time. It was Citizen which provided the necessary technical expertise along with the Miyota movements to manufacture watches in India and HMT Watches came into existence in the year 1962. The Citizen Miyota movement is second only to Swatch ETA movement to be used worldwide.
Coming back to Citizen Eco Drive series, it is available in various forms and functions. Right to plain simple ones which look no different from their regular quartz counterparts except that they have marked by Ecodrive (and costs more than twice to the similar Non Ecodrive marked ones) to the multifunction devices like Calendrier, Perpetual Calender, and Chronograph series. Ana-Digital though is not a forte of Citizen (Casio being the leader) but still Citizen has an impressive range named Promaster series. Besides the ease of never to be replaced batteries, one of the major reasons of the success of Eco Drive series is the Green Technology and Non polluting source of energy. Hence, it invokes a sense of pride in its customers that they are in some way caring for the environment and still saved from the hassle of manual winding (Mechanical watches) or Minimum Wrist Time (Mechanical Automatic watches). This in a way combines the goods of both the mechanical and quartz technologies.
Comparing this to Seiko Spring Drive movement Citizen Eco Drive still uses a battery though charged by solar energy while Spring Drive is a "Quartz regulated mechanical". Another difference is the price range and Seiko Spring Drive is way too expensive than Citizen Ecodrive being a relatively newer and more advanced technology.More apt for the comparison is Seiko Kinetic Drive.The idea of Seiko Kinetic drive is to take the rotor from an automatic mechanical movement, and instead ofhaving it wind a main spring, have it charge a battery. Thus one never has to replace the watch battery, and still have the accuracy of a quartz movement. But still it needs some wrist time to charge the battery.
Now enough of these comparisons and coming to my purchase. Alas, it is not a Eco Drive series watch but a simple Citizen Quartz dress watch powered by a humble battery. It is quite a thin watch, rectangular in shape and have gold finished edges. I bought this one to suit my formal occasions and it gives a mature image at a single look.Perfect for meetings and marriage occasions. It is accompanied by a black leather strap which is quite good and goes well along with the watch. The Roman numerals also add to the charm of the watch. The second watch is missing but it does have Day feature. I realized the importance of second watch when it stopped working all of a sudden and I have to take some time to figure it out. The reason was battery and I got it replaced. It went well for next few months after which it again stopped working though the culprit this time also was battery for the second time in a single year. Pretty bad. I got it replaced once again and it is ticking well now.
On final thoughts I feel Citizen Quartz watches are nothing extra ordinary and much better designs are available from our own Desi Titan and that too at a lower price. If you are going for Citizen better spend some more moolah and go for Eco Drive series only. At least it will give you a feeling of being a more responsible Citizen.
