Let's start with a detailed rundown of an extremely impressive (and lengthy) set of features:
* Light-weight titanium case and bracelet with a highly scratch resistant DLC (Diamond-like Carbon) coating. Not only does DLC shrug off all kinds of abuse, but it helps give the watch a very cool stealthy look appreciated by those of us who aren't so much into bling.
* Sapphire crystal (virtually scratchproof) with AR coating.
* Atomic calibration compatible with time signals in Japan, US, Germany, and China. Calibration occurs at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., and 4 a.m. The 4 a.m. calibration can be moved to any time of the day which is great for people who work nights. While calibrating, the second hand turns into a signal strength indicator.
* Solar powered with a 3.5 year power reserve, two levels of power-saving (the first for the LCDs, and the second for the analog hands), battery power indicator, and a low-battery warning. If the watch's battery ever dies completely, it's even smart enough to automatically calibrate once sufficiently recharged.
* World time. 43 cities are pre-programmed, and there's room to add one custom city (the time can be set in increments of 15 minutes which can accommodate pretty much any time zone on the planet). DST can be individually toggled for any of the 43 cities, and each city can be hidden if you'd like to remove it from the list (to make scrolling more efficient). And finally, you can swap your home and world time zones by depressing the two buttons on the right simultaneously. This is a great feature for people who frequently travel between the same two cities.
* Two world time alarms. Each alarm can be set to individual cities, and each alarm sounds a distinct tone. The alarms have a test function so you can try them out without actually having to set them and wait for them to go off.
* Countdown timer with a maximum time of 99 minutes.
* Stopwatch with a resolution of 1/100th of a second and a maximum time of 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59.99 seconds.
* UTC subdial at the 12 o'clock position, 24-hour subdial at the 2 o'clock position, mode subdial at the 6 o'clock position, and battery power subdial at the 10 o'clock position.
* Internal timing bezel for analog timing. This is an extremely unusual feature typically only found on dive watches. The crown located at the 8 o'clock position rotates the inner bezel which you can use for timing against the analog minute hand.
* Red electroluminescent backlight (very cool effect), and surprisingly bright luminescent paint on the hour and minute hands, hour indices, and the "pearl" of the rotating diving bezel.
* Tri-fold push-button clasp with slide micro-adjuster. Rather than moving spring pins to make micro adjustments to the bracelet, just depress the clasp buttons and slide the bracelet in or out to get a perfect fit.
* Anti-magnetic to 4,800 A/m (not quite a Rolex Milgauss, but not bad), hand correction function (in case the hands get misaligned due to magnetism or shock), and shock-resistant construction.
* Water resistant to 100 meters, or about 330 feet.
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US $850.00
Very cool! If I was to go quartz again, that would be on the short list.
Haha! You can be in the mechanical bed and the quartz bed. They aren’t mutually exclusive! But I know what you mean. This is one of the cooler quartz watches out there and aside from the Campanola or Promaster series, one of the best Citizen watches made.
I just got my Attesa ATV53-2933, and it is an awesome piece of timekeeping. However, I have some complaints. I guess I’m just used to the Promaster series, but I was dissappointed that there is no “hand retract” feature. So if it’s 2:15 and you want to use the stopwatch, you can’t retract the hands to the 12:00 position and out of the way of the LCD. (You can if you get creative with the timezones, but it’d be nice to have a dedicated feature)
Also, the large second hand doesn’t switch to being the stopwatch second hand when you switch to the stopwatch. I loved that feature of the Promasters.
And even a $1200 quartz watch still can’t seem to get the second hand to line up exactly centered on all the hash marks. Very frustrating.
Hi there,
I’d like to comment about your last point.. precision placement of the seconds hand. This is a gripe I have as well. Lots of watches can’t seem to get this right, and it all comes down to quality control. My understanding is that it all has to do with when the hand is applied to the movement over the dial. This placement determines everything. Be it placed by hand or machine, there needs to be some more sophisticated alignment process. One of the only brands that I know to accomplish this most (but not all the the time) is Casio. However, it is very likely that there is a “hand orientation or reconfiguration” mode in the Citizen watch that allows you to manually move the hand ever so slightly to adjust its placement. Consult the guide of look online to see how to do this.
Yes, the attesa does have a procedure in the manual to centre the hands, but it is not 100 percent.
I have a Seiko watch that has a second hand that is dead on.