Citizen Nighthawk BJ7000-52E
Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:54 pm
I was so struck by the Citizen Nighthawk BJ7000-52E in person that I needed to write a review. I’ve always liked it well enough, but wrote it off as too busy, too big, etc. The discontinuation of the model and a recent sale at Amazon made me reconsider. For the first time, I noticed the dual-track second time zone. Small but meaningful design touches like that will win me over every time. I took the plunge, and Amazon had it on my doorstep two days later.
First impression was that it looks better in person than in any rendering or photo. The brushed steel case, glossy black dial, and crisp dial text are highlights. There was no instruction manual in the box, just a card directing me to download the Citizen app to register the warranty and download the manual. Inconvenient, but okay.
There’s a screw down crown and two setting positions for the crown: the furthest position adjusts the hour and minute hand and the GMT hand together. This is the feature that won me over: the white plan hits the white dual-time track, indicating morning hours. The red plane hits the red track in the afternoon. 24-hour GMT – how cool is that? Set the GMT hand to the desired second time zone, set the minutes, then push the crown in to the middle position. Now you can adjust the local time hour hand and the date. This quick-change hour hand capability will come in handy for traveling.
Sizing the bracelet was easy thanks to split pins. I removed five links and it fit my 6.5” wrist perfectly. The dual-lock clasp has three micro-adjustment positions. While I don’t normally like bracelets, especially on larger watches, the 22mm-18mm taper makes this one very wearable and the taper was still smooth after removing that many links. Total weight with the bracelet is 133g. Larger watches can sometimes cause me a little wrist pain, but the Nighthawk was comfortable all day.
The slide bezel is something I need to practice more to really understand. I watched a video, it made sense, but trying it myself it was still a little confusing. Really looking forward to being able to convert miles to kilometers on the fly. If I can figure out how to do Celsius to Fahrenheit conversions, I’ll be good to go.
I found that the busy-ness of the dial isn’t really a problem. The local time is very readable. Kudos to the designer for cramming so much useful information and functionality into a fairly small space and making it all work together. It takes skill to keep things on the right side of cluttered. While I was initially apprehensive about the 42mm case size on my small wrist, it works. I wouldn’t want this much functionality and information on a smaller dial.
Lume seems good. I didn’t test the duration, but it was visible moving from a sunny windowsill to further in the room. This was taken after 15 minutes or so outside on a sunny day, then going into a dark basement.
Enough gushing. There are three small issues, but all are minor enough to not get hung up on. First, the bracelet is squeaky. Not noticeable on the wrist, so no big deal. Second, the end links have an odd angle that doesn’t seem cohesive with the case. See how it juts out? Again, not a deal breaker but I would like to understand the designer’s thinking. Lastly, no drilled lugs. That's going to make removing the bracelet a pain.
Overall, I strongly recommend picking up one of these watches while you can. Regular retail, if you can find it, should be around $150-200USD. Used on eBay, they trend around $100-120USD. A great price for a solar powered, dual-time watch with a very useful (so I hear) slide bezel.
(Edited to add a third negative thing.)
First impression was that it looks better in person than in any rendering or photo. The brushed steel case, glossy black dial, and crisp dial text are highlights. There was no instruction manual in the box, just a card directing me to download the Citizen app to register the warranty and download the manual. Inconvenient, but okay.
There’s a screw down crown and two setting positions for the crown: the furthest position adjusts the hour and minute hand and the GMT hand together. This is the feature that won me over: the white plan hits the white dual-time track, indicating morning hours. The red plane hits the red track in the afternoon. 24-hour GMT – how cool is that? Set the GMT hand to the desired second time zone, set the minutes, then push the crown in to the middle position. Now you can adjust the local time hour hand and the date. This quick-change hour hand capability will come in handy for traveling.
Sizing the bracelet was easy thanks to split pins. I removed five links and it fit my 6.5” wrist perfectly. The dual-lock clasp has three micro-adjustment positions. While I don’t normally like bracelets, especially on larger watches, the 22mm-18mm taper makes this one very wearable and the taper was still smooth after removing that many links. Total weight with the bracelet is 133g. Larger watches can sometimes cause me a little wrist pain, but the Nighthawk was comfortable all day.
The slide bezel is something I need to practice more to really understand. I watched a video, it made sense, but trying it myself it was still a little confusing. Really looking forward to being able to convert miles to kilometers on the fly. If I can figure out how to do Celsius to Fahrenheit conversions, I’ll be good to go.
I found that the busy-ness of the dial isn’t really a problem. The local time is very readable. Kudos to the designer for cramming so much useful information and functionality into a fairly small space and making it all work together. It takes skill to keep things on the right side of cluttered. While I was initially apprehensive about the 42mm case size on my small wrist, it works. I wouldn’t want this much functionality and information on a smaller dial.
Lume seems good. I didn’t test the duration, but it was visible moving from a sunny windowsill to further in the room. This was taken after 15 minutes or so outside on a sunny day, then going into a dark basement.
Enough gushing. There are three small issues, but all are minor enough to not get hung up on. First, the bracelet is squeaky. Not noticeable on the wrist, so no big deal. Second, the end links have an odd angle that doesn’t seem cohesive with the case. See how it juts out? Again, not a deal breaker but I would like to understand the designer’s thinking. Lastly, no drilled lugs. That's going to make removing the bracelet a pain.
Overall, I strongly recommend picking up one of these watches while you can. Regular retail, if you can find it, should be around $150-200USD. Used on eBay, they trend around $100-120USD. A great price for a solar powered, dual-time watch with a very useful (so I hear) slide bezel.
(Edited to add a third negative thing.)