I am a watch collector, preferably chronographs by far. Rolex, Breitling, on the high end, and some mere mortal watches, as well. This is my 3rd Citizen, and I have been pleased with them all, especially this one. This is the 3rd generation Skyhawk, and Citizen has removed most (if not all) of the bugs and complaints. The reliablility has been better than some of the timepieces that cost 10 times the price or more.! Both of my high-end models have seen the shop, the Citizens just keep on keeping time spectacularly!

First, the look. Well sized, it looks like a large watch, but really isn't THAT big. The light weight (for it's size) makes it a lot less tiring on the arm and wrist. The construction is rock solid and you feel like you have a solid timepiece on your wrist. Hefty without being too heavy. It has a modernistic, clean, yet pilot/techno look with all the dials and gauges, a must for a chrono lover. The orange/amber coloring against the black background look superb and racy. Dials are legible, with improved lume and a backlight (albeit smallish) being upgraded from the 2nd generation. I opted for the black-ion version because my 2nd gen is titanium, and I didn't want to duplicate that (yet, anyway, but who knows??) here.

It took a few minutes to correctly go through the manual and guide and get the watch set up and programmed, but once it was, it is a pleasure knowing all I have to do from now on is to set it, no, it does that itself with the A-T feature, so all I have to do is put it on, or take it off.

There have been a few trade offs, like the lack of some cities listed in the clock array of the 2nd gen, and one less alarm, but to gain radio controlled A-T and the other features was well worth it, and most of those features have been changed, not removed.

What can Citizen do to improve this watch? I am sure every watch owner has his or her favorite feature or improvement to make to ANY watch, but it is mind blowing to imagine where Citizen goes from here. I have seen the new satellite based watches, but the designs do not speak to me as much as the Skyhawk does, they are not chronos and I don't see that they would be more accurate than this model. You could be picayune and say this watch could use a stronger backlight or more lume, but that is nearly everyone's complaint about some watch, somewhere all the time.

At inception, these watches were commanding nearly $1000.00, and today (3 years later) they can be found pretty regularly between $400-600.00 at retail, and every now and then a lot less at auction, (new and unworn), or from a site like Amazon. This watch has retired some of its' more expensive cousins, because the combination of form, function, technology and price make it a wonderful investment. Enjoy.!