Citizen Series 8 review

This watch was a Christmas present from my wife a few months ago and I believe enough time has elapsed to give an honest, unbiased review.  I will say this watch knocked my Ball out of the top spot in my collection and though it isn’t in all of my WRUW photos it sees wrist time almost every day.

Specs:

Model Number - NB6010-81E

Movement - Citizen/Miyota 9051 24 jewel, 28,800 beat rate 42 hour power reserve

Case - 40mm wide, 20mm lug width, 49mm lug to lug, and 10.1mm thick

Crystal - Sapphire with anti-reflective coating

Water resistance - 100m

Anti-magnetic - 16,000 gauss

Starting with the overall appearance, the faceted case and bracelet catch all the light present and I find myself doing unnecessary wrist rolls just to look at it.  From a finishing perspective this watch hits well above its price point, it is possibly better finished than my Ball.  Moving to the face of the watch though the dial is a simple layout the indices are mounted to a raised out portion giving the dial extra depth.  Apart from silver indices on the hour there are 3 rings of hashes for the minute marks with the innermost being hard to notice unless the lighting is just right.

The subtle octagonal shape gives it a larger appearance than the dimensions suggest though on my 8.25” wrist it is welcomed.  As I have seen in other places this watch doesn’t look out of place on smaller wrists but that could definitely be a concern if you have a sub 7” wrist.

The crown is one of the larger ones in my collection and to me that is a plus.  It does not screw down but with the guard in place you’re not very likely to pull it out by accident.  Speaking of the guard, though large they are not noticeable while wearing it.

The 20mm bracelet does not have a taper but with the clasp I honestly don’t think a taper is needed.  It has a nice H-link design and has a brushed finish with polished bevels surrounding each link.  It wears great on my wrist though without any micro adjustments on the clasp you have to make due with half links to fine tune the fit.  Despite the lack of micro adjustments the clasp is one of my favorite features of this watch.  The latch works well and is recessed into the clasp itself making it the most comfortable of my modest collection.  I have not tried the watch on anything other than the bracelet but if you are so inclined the 20mm lugs give you countless options.

The lume is clean and straightforward making the watch extremely legible at night.  Though I haven’t timed it officially, I keep my watchbox in a closet and I was surprised to find the lume was able to still be noticeable about 8 hours after I put the watch away for the night.

All in all it is hard to find fault with this watch.  If you’re determined to hear it the Miyota rotor can be loud but in normal wear that is not something I notice.  I know there will be some that do not like the design of the case or would balk at spending this much on just a Citizen but that's subjective and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another if something happened to this one.