First, note that I reviewed a similar Invicta watch on August 25th, the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Invicta-Men-s-1435-Russian-Diver-Silver-Dial-Rubber-Watch/dp/B00556FET6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Invicta Men's 1435 Russian Diver Silver Dial Rubber Watch</a>, and I will compare the two models where it's helpful.  The 1435 has a glaringly white face.  This is a review of the Invicta Men's 1531 Subaqua Collection Chronograph Watch, which has a black face.

WEIGHT

The Invicta 1531 is just a truly massive behemoth for something that's designed only to be worn on a person's wrist, and usually the weaker wrist.  It weighs a whopping 216 grams, which is 7.62 ounces, which is more than 13% heavier than the 1435 whose weight I complained and explained about, and which is almost certainly the heaviest item of jewelry you're ever likely to wear unless your name is Flavor Flav, which it's legally not since he trademarked it.  I mean, we're talking about nearly half a POUND of wristwatch.

VOLUME

According to my calipers (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/True-Power-6-150mm-Stainless-Steel-Digital-Vernier-Caliper-with-Inch-Fractions-Decimal-SAE-Metric-Unit-Display-Conversion-446/dp/B000YFT0A2/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">True Power 6"(150mm) Stainless Steel Digital Vernier Caliper with Inch Fractions/Decimal SAE/Metric Unit Display & Conversion #446</a>), the thickness of the model 1531 is 19.2 millimeters, which makes it exactly 20% thicker than even the gargantuan 1435's 16 mm, about which I said, "This enormous size . . . also makes a difference to certain items of clothing you might wear. For example, wearing the model 1435 I literally cannot don my leather motorcycle jacket without tearing the cuff. The only other choice is to remove the watch, don the jacket, and re-apply the watch . . . . Not only that, in cold weather I'd regret having my wrist exposed. And of course I'd have to perform that process in reverse whenever I wanted to doff the jacket. Furthermore, two of the pairs of gloves when I ride, which have gauntlets, simply do not fit over the Invicta 1435. Yet furthermore, no normal Oxford shirt with long sleeves will fit over this watch unless they're really loose . . . ."

So, all of that goes 120% for the Invicta model 1531 wristwatch.

The diameter across the bezel is exactly 50 millimeters, which is as near as makes no difference equal to 2 whole entire inches.  Lay a ruler across your wrist and see how much of that girth 2 inches take up.  When you add in the crown the equatorial diameter rises to 56.3 millimeters, or 2-7/32 inches, which either way is another 12.6%.

In combination with the relatively extreme mass, its total horizontal length is such that if you are about to be in a car crash you might want to think about removing this watch lest the pointy part smash into the back of your hand with more force than it can tolerate.  Or a plane crash.  Or a bad parachute landing.  Or sliding into second base arms first.  Well, you get the idea.

It's because of its great weight and volume that Tiger Woods almost never plays golf with this watch.  This is not a wristwatch many of the top-level handball players are typically going to be likely to wear a whole lot.  It has long been infamous among your more long-lived tightrope walkers as what they blithely call a jinx.  Puppeteers hate wearing it, as do eye surgeons and jet pilots in the middle of a dogfight.  And foosball and darts and pool players.  And slot machine addicts.  I'm sure the list goes on.

Unlike the Invicta model 1435 I reviewed earlier, the 1531 under review here does more than tell time.  It also shows the date of the month unless you set it wrong, which is easy to do, in which case it's a day behind for the first half of every day till you get around to setting it correctly.

And the 1531 offers three of what are called sub-dials, which are small dials set into the face.  They are all analog, i.e., there is a hand that rotates clockwise.  One is the equivalent of a sweep second hand, which runs from 0 seconds at the 12 o'clock position round to 30 seconds at the 6 o'clock position and round the second half of the way to 60 seconds back at the 12 o'clock position, just as you would expect.

Confusingly, the large sweep hand that you would expect would continuously tick off the seconds, 60 per revolution, just sits there motionlessly at the 12 o'clock position.

The sweep hand and the other two sub-dials have something to do with the stopwatch somehow, I think, but the very point is that I'm not sure.  This model does offer a stopwatch feature, but it so difficult to operate correctly when you need it that I gave up trying to figure it out.  I'll just use my smartphone or something, or wear a different watch.  Furthermore, even if you do remember how to operate it, for a significant part of the time (ha ha) the critical parts of these sub-dials are obscured by the two regular hands that tell the time in hours and minutes, which seems like a design defect.

Furthermore, even when you CAN see the critical parts, to learn the elapsed time you have to consult multiple dials and do math in your head.

INSTRUCTION MANUAL

Which brings us to the manual for this product.  I had not seen it when I reviewed the 1435 because the only thing you can do with that one is set the time of day.  The 1531 is different, quite different.  In order to use the manual that comes with the 1531 and apparently quite a large number of other Invicta watches, you first have to figure out which kind of watch you've got, which is not easy, or at least I still haven't figured it out for sure.  You can open a PDF of that manual -- and I recommend you do before you buy this watch -- using the link in the Product Details section of the Amazon page for this product to see what I mean.

Even if you DO know for sure which type of watch you've got, either the instructions are confusing or the watch is.

And if you DON'T know for sure which type of watch you've got -- which, as I say, I don't -- the manual becomes even more difficult to interpret.  You have to guess whether a particular feature's explanation is for your exact model or some other, similar one.  You have to experiment to figure it out, and after a while you have to say to yourself, "Hey, this isn't worth it."  Well, maybe you don't, but I do.

The manufacturer should have spent more money on more manuals rather than trying somehow to cram too many models all into one.  For all this needless manual confusion I subtact 1 star.

WARRANTY

Also, take a look at pages 54 and 55 of that one-size-fits-hundreds manual.  Page 54 discusses "alligator, crocodile, snake, hamster, Ostrich, and 'fish, such as stingrays or Salmon," without explaining the odd capitalization choices.

But WAY more important, page 55 lists the 12 terms you need to know about in order to get warranty service, including number 5, which requires you to pay $25 for "S&H," which I can only assume means shipping and handling.  But you must not only pay the $25 for shipping and handling, you must also pay the shipping fee to send the watch back.

Not only that, you must pay Invicta the $25 by snail-mailing a money order, which not only increases the price by a small amount but, for most people, increases the inconvenience factor by a large amount.

BAD BOX?

And you will see that term number 2 specifically prohibits using the box the watch came in to send it back.  This makes no sense to me.  If the packaging the watch came in was good enough to send it to me, why would it not be good enough to send it back to you?  This is the opposite of what I would expect.

I suspect some of these provisions are partly for the purpose of dissuading some buyers from availing themselves of warranty service.  For this I subtract 1 star.  You read through all 12 of these terms and you say, "To heck with it," and you give up before you begin.

The exact watch I have has gained four seconds in eight days.  I know because I set it eight days ago to the atomic-clock time, and I just now compared it to that same atomic-clock time.  Half a second per day is 15 seconds a month or three minutes a year, which isn't all that bad for a quartz movement.

Five stars minus 1 star for the designed-in problems and the confusing manual minus another 1 star for the disappointing warranty provisions is 3 stars.

Notice that I do not subtract any stars for the weight and volume of this watch.  If you wear this watch, beware that pretty much everyone near you WILL see it and mentally, if not out loud, remark on it.  Somewhere in there will be, "Golly gee, what a very large watch that is."