Seiko SNJ025: One Year Retrospective

In the second installment of my long-term retrospectives, I figured I'd look at the watch I got for Christmas of 2021: my Seiko Arnie. Formerly the highest-rated watch I reviewed (an honor my Hamilton PSR now holds with a perfect score), my SNJ025 is my go-to tool watch, and for good reason. It has:

1. 200m of water resistance,

2. a great history, having been worn by the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger in some of his greatest films from the 80s,

3. solar charging,

4. great lume,

5. an analog and digital display,

6. several functions on said digital display, e.g. a chronograph, second timezone, the day and date, a backlight, and a digital readout of the time, and to top it off,

7. an ISO-compliant Diver's rating.

Even though I'm more of a sports watch guy and prefer my timepieces to have at least 10 bars of WR, the Arnie is the first watch I usually reach for when I go swimming or otherwise engage in high-intensity activities. Hell, it accompanied me during one of the most surprisingly awful getaways I've ever had at Great Sacandaga Lake last year, and if I'm traveling somewhere without any formal plans or dress, I'd bring it with me before a lot of my other watches. Despite what purists might say otherwise, you don’t have to worry about any gears or parts breaking in a quartz watch. The same logic motivated me to buy myself a Hamilton PSR instead of a Seiko Alpinist a few weeks back.

While the Arnie is probably the best affordable quartz watch that Seiko currently produces, it's clear that they weren't looking to make something that you could wear to THAT uncle's sixth wedding. The Arnie is very clearly a tool and is not adjacent to jewelry like their other diver offerings, like the 62MAS, the 5KXes, or even the solar SNEs. It's designed to be sturdy and functional, rather than look nice with your Joseph Abboud suit.

Resultantly, my Arnie sits around, waiting to be worn for the right occasion. It's not that I don't enjoy wearing it; quite the opposite. Most of the time I don't feel compelled to put it on my wrist because I'm not going anywhere which would require me to have an ISO-6425 rating. Yet again, most people who own Submariners never take them into the water with them.

While functional, the Arnie is very inelegant and not very versatile, even though it's tough enough for any challenge. I actually chose to get one of these instead of a G-Shock because I thought it'd be less "tacticool", and because it has standard 22mm lugs. While I have tried a number of straps on it, I feel it looks best on a dark NATO or it's original rubber strap (or in my case, Uncle Seiko's shortened version of the GL-831, which gives the same look without the excess material). Although it's not nearly as cluttered as the average G-Shock, it's still a tool watch through and through, and for one of the seminal sports watches of the 1980s, what more would you want?