Seiko Men's SRN023 Coutura Kinetic Retrograde Watch

Looks is not everything

Seiko Men's SRN023 Coutura Kinetic Retrograde Watch is a fine time keeping machine. In about two weeks since I've had it the watch was too fast only by 4 seconds relative to the internet time. It takes very moderate amount of movement to keep its battery charged. True it looks very nice and catches the other people's eye. There are though couple of important things I definitly do not enjoy as much as its ability to be a very good time keeping instrument. I have problem reading time at a reasonably quick glance. The face is way too busy with wide and long 5-minute marks and with unjustifiably large and bright what Seiko ironically calls the watch "retrograde" for - the day dial. When both hands are over this dial it takes quite some time and strains my eyes to recognize which hand is which especially when they are close one to another not to mention when they are even partially one over the other. The minute hand is much narrower than the hour hand and has a very sharp end which is barely distinguishable when the hands are close together and the more so when they are over the day dial. I think that both the minute hand and the second hand could be made a tiny bit longer. Another thing I definitely do not like and have hard time using is the little date window because it is way too small the date dial is imbeded too deep and the numerals are too small especially when two numerals are to be displayed there - very hard to read. All in all we carry a watch to SEE the time and other things on the watch face without having to spend too much time for this and straining our eyes. Add to this being in a not so bright lighting environment and you would start thinking about buying another watch and puting this one on the other wrist as a decoration -:))) However excelent a watch is as a time keeping instrument it has got to be convenient practical and easy to use. Prior to this watch I had another Seiko watch that served me better than well over quarter a century but it had a perfect lay out of the white face also with the calendar on it.More detail ...