Why the Citizen Eco Drive is King and a Major marketing Blunder?

 Why the Citizen Eco Drive is King or Is there such a thing as a Watch being Overpriced?

Consider the following:

Approx cost of a Citizen BN176-08 E* approx $750 USD second hand from the bay.

I've beaten the daylights out of this model ( I bought mine second hand over 4 years ago), diving, caving, adventuring been around the globe several times etc. You get my point.

BTW I still have my original 200m Eco Drive, perfect time countless dives, water action, caving action, canyoning action etc. 25 years old now! Still going strong, OK, I lost a bezel after about 22 years of the above action! Never had a service, never leaked.

So what does Citizen's latest 300m model look like?

Latest 300m Professional diver's model from Citizen BN1024-01E approx. cost $580 USD brand new! 

This is the limited edition model (BN1025-08L LIMITED EDITION shown above) of the new  BN1024-01E. You can see the similarity of the design to previous 200m models and this is evident in the bezel design. In fact there is nothing outstanding about this new model at all and even the sapphire crystal can not save it from looking like a regular 200m (much cheaper Eco Drive.

I have to say it doesn't look as cool as the BN 176-08E, it just looks like a beefier version of the regular 200m, they kind of admit this anyway. I think it's a marketing blunder and not distinct enough, sorry Citizen!

accuracy +_ 1 sec in one year!

Can you see the difference?

Although the above model is NOT that dissimilar in appearance (and therefore does not stand out against the following model:

 

However at a considerable cost increase. Ok, sure, we have a sapphire glass in the new 

BN1024-01E and

there is just a regular mineral glass in the BN0156-05E

 What's disconcerting is that already this new model is available second hand on the Bay! Ok they could be stolen etc. who knows and certainly there are many Japanese sites selling watches which are all FAKE as they simply use the same pictures but the sellers all appear to be different. WARNING! Either none of them actually have the model (usually the case) or they are all as i said crooked! Caveat Emptor!

For serious diving, the bezel design from the award winning 200m Aqualand (you can read about it here) is far better to grip and the surface finish to this watch bezel is far superior to that of the new model which is just bare stainless steel.

Shown above just after a dive, the BN0176-08E (immediately below the camera) and the Aqualand 200m BN 2026-00E (this was a "special edition" model with a TiN coating (note Suppaparts adapters I added).

with gloves one than the 

BN0156-05E

As is the bezel for the the BN 0176-08E 

and it's 300m sister model with the fluorescent green minute hand.

What do you get for 300m water resistance in terms of time performance?

Rolex Sub Mariner

The straight stainless steel model

approx. $11, 219 USD! No mention of accuracy only crapping on about what they did back in 1953! That's almost 20 watches of the above model citizen. I know which watch will last longer and require less servicing!

Sure a Porsche out of the show room will drive better than  Subaru out of the show room. However, a Subaru modified will give ANY Porsche a run for it's money, I know, I had one LOL. BUT we can't modify watches in the same way as we can for cars.

I'd bet the above Citizen Eco drives can take a hell of a more beating than ANY Rolex watch.

It's physics. There are fewer mechanicals within the guts of an eco drive, this means less things to go wrong. In terms of accuracy, NO automatic watch can compare to the crappiest of quartz watches, even no name brand ones when it comes to time keeping. 

No, one buys a Rolex, to tell the time. One buys a Rolex because it's a Rolex, not to tell the time accurately, only to: show off to your mates you've either made it, blew the family savings (and hence about to encounter even more  debt because now you face divorce proceedings), expect to get you arm yanked off by some desperate robber and finally incur massive (and they are) service charges (out of warranty), if you manage to ward off the thief. 

It definitely will not tell the time better than the above 2 Eco Drives.

What's even more frightening that for such a ridiculous price, the warranty is but for 5 years!

Let me tell you right now, it will not be under warranty if you are playing ball games with it on your wrist or batoning a knife, using a jack hammer etc. (probably the Citizen won't be warrantied either for the jack hammer action but the service cost will not cause a rise in blood pressure either.

BCT

*The Eco-Drive PROMASTER AQUALAND is compliant with both the ISO 6425 Dive Watch and the JIS B 7023 Watch for Diving standards.