Citizen GN-09-5 on C240 movement

Citizen GN-09-5 on C240 movement

It will sound repeated, but I find analog digital combo on a watch the best thing to wear. You get it, best of both worlds. Not many of these analog digital combo watches get to be truly quality ones. Citizen C240 dos not look like Breitling, yet has a lot of promise. Lest see it up close and personal and judge pros and cons of this watch.

There is family of expensive watches by Swiss brands with a lot in common: back in the time it was cool to be digital yet they had no guts to be one. So internals were outscored to Japanese manufacturers. Citizen was inside ... of … you name it. Later on, cool and proudly Swiss calibers were developed to justify 6000$ asking price. Japanese internal trickled into Casio you can buy at mere 50$ or even 25$. But what you should buy, if you do want them both digital and hands? However, you not really want live with robust manly size which can fit elephant leg elegantly, acrylic crystal and cheap glare of rather questionable or compromised design choices? Here in Canada there is no such watch you can buy new by walking into the store. Back in the days Citizen sold you middle ground analog-digital watch with positive (actually normal LCD) display, stainless steel bracelet, reasonable slim build, good lume and no backlight. I am not sure about exact date this watch was manufactured. Judging by rather ruff surface finish and no backlight whatsoever I would guess it late 90-s crop. In that time dual LCD analog digital watch was a huge deal. It was trendy, it was THE contemporary view into the future. Today you can get some Casio Edifice models from foreign markets to fill the shoes of this Citizen. You can get Pulsar or Lorus from US. If you lucky you can get a lot of discontinued models packing same movement under so many brands…  You see ones successful movement represented in C240 Citizen. What makes it so good? What make this Citizen worth wearing?

You have time always on in your analog form and digital on top LCD. It is very convenient and simple way to always see the time.

 If you need to count seconds you can do it by looking at bold red second hand (tipped with glowing marker) or with LCD. Bottom LCD can show you date in month/date/day format, stopwatch , timer, alarm or dual time. Alarm is usual affair with nothing to write home about it shows either off or set time. 

Timer on other hand has neat trick of showing you minute count on the far right numerals so you sure how much it was and how much is left. 

 Dual time is hour:min format with no special tricks like name of the city or daylight savings.  Watch lacks “perpetual” calendar therefore it good forever just has to see adjustment ones in leap year. Stopwatch is 60 min only with split time and elapsed time. 

 Each function has small fonted reminders in the upper portion of lower LCD. Upper LCD has same digit size as lower. Quality of LCD screens is good and legibility is great. Use of custom bracelet keeps north and south ends of the watch narrow, but make use of any third party bracelet or strap impossible.  Watch face is plain black with Citizen, 50m WR and alarm chronograph written on the watch face. Surface finish, bezel design and look of the pushers have hefty space for improvement. Pushers act with solid confidence and no effort. In C240 you get all digital functionality with analog counterpart build with quality in mind. That is that you get. Why this type of watches fell off favor? Watches are about image they create in potential owner head.

Is it attractive for you?! What playing cords on your six string wallet? Today is different for yesterday. People did not abandoned love for combination of digital and analog in their watches. Smartwatches with custom faces are pinnacle of this need to have both. This affection for hands and digits shifted into bigger, bolder, more rugged looking, more complicated looking or very over the sea places. 

So what this watch is? It’s nicely thin steel watch with mineral glass crystal great legibility, thoughtful arsenal of functionality and no nonsense approach to information delivery. It a good all around watch you can wear to any occasion. What this Citizen tells about you? First of all you not “cheap” Casio person and you value quality. You fairly modern and you may not look as cool as it you would when this watch was made, yet it signal one thing you are the person of integrity and purpose. Both are great virtues.