- Quality Japanese quartz movement with Kinetic capability
- Strong Hardlex crystal protects dial from scratches
- Case diameter: 40.5 mm
- Black ion-plated stainless steel case and matching bracelet; black dial; date function
- Water resistant up to 330 feet (100 M)
User reviews
Some Seikos have a lot of charm and personality (the Sumo, the Monsters, the Razorback, etc). This watch ain't one of those. It is instead a highly polished efficient timekeeper that does its job in a flawless though bland manner. It keeps time, it's well made, it looks nice in an understated way, and it will probably last for 10-15 years without needing a battery or service. This is remarkable, yet also unexciting. Some watches are for collectors, others are for utilitarians. The SKA 389 (notice the lack of a catchy nickname!) is in the latter category.
First, how it works. This is a quartz movement, accurate to within 3-5 seconds per month. This is about 30 times better than the best automatic movements available. That said, the movement lacks the soul of an automatic - the second hand moves in discrete boring one second chunks from one notch to the next, without the fluid sweep of a mechanical watch. If you want aesthetics, there is little on display here, but if you want the time delivered accurately, here you go.
Unlike a regular quartz though, the SKA will not need a battery in a few years. The Kinetics use a rotor to generate electrical current which is then stored in a high capacity titanium lithium ion battery. (The current models of Kinetics no longer use the capacitors that the initial models did. Seiko had problems with that device and switched over to these batteries.) Unlike your cell phone battery, this combination of battery and power level is good for roughly 20 years according to Seiko. The tech hasn't been around that long of course, so we can take that as an estimate only, but I would say you'll get at least a decade out of it without needing service or a new battery.
Seiko wants you to think of this watch as being a hybrid of automatic and quartz technologies, so they have an "exhibition" (see-through) case back so you can watch the rotor as it turns around in back. You can also hear a mechanical whir and feel the rotor turn as you swing your arm. The actual movement though is not visible through the case back (just as well, as most quartz movements resemble circuit boards more than anything else) so instead you see the rotor and a few big gears that generate the current. There is nothing elegant here, and if you are expecting something like a decorated jeweled ETA movement here, you will be sorely disappointed. You'll watch the rotor turn for maybe 5 minutes, show it to a few friends, and then never look at it again. In comparison, the average automatic watch movement is far more charming to observe, even over the long term, but again the SKA 389 ain't about entertainment or charm.
Seiko tells you in the manual that the max power reserve on the SKA 389 is 6 months. (That is how long the watch would take to stop if you took it off and didn't wear it.) To hit that level, you'll have to swing the watch back in forth in your hand many thousands of times or walk about a mile in less than 48 hours. Wearing the watch over the course of a single day will get you about a week's reserve, so most users who are not vigorously active will only slowly build up a reserve, and will probably rarely hit the full six month reserve. Regardless, you'll have more than enough power on hand to take the watch off at night, for a weekend, or even a whole week. This is far superior to even the best automatics, which will give you 40-50 hours of maximum reserve power at full wind.
Aesthetics: functional and low key. The matte black finish is elegant and the watch feels well made. As with all Seikos, finish and detail is impeccable, and the watch looks far more expensive than it is. My complaints are with the size of the watch and the band. The 40.5 mm diameter of the watch is smallish for ordinary male wrists. As with all Kinetics, the square base plate (that the circular face sits on) is disproportionately large (part of the generator assembly I guess) so the watch has a bit of a squarish shape on your arm rather than the more traditional circle, which makes the 30mm face of the watch look smaller than it is. According to current style, men should have about a 42mm faced watch (or bigger) so this watch is unstylishly small, at least unless your wrists are also small. My 7.5 inch wrist is by no means huge, but this watch looks teeny on it. Adding insult to injury, the band is also quite narrow, so narrow band and average to small sized face means this watch will be utterly lost on a big guy's arm. If you don't mind this, or if your wrist is not that large, this is not an issue.
Warranty is three years. The watch also has a "power reserve" reading feature where you can press a second button and get a rough indicator of your power reserve by the movement of the second hand. After sweeping to show you the power level, the second hand freezes in place until the time "catches up" with it and then starts moving again. A neat gimmick, but one you'll probably use only to make sure the watch is working correctly. There is a date complication on the face. The watch has a steel bezel that can be used as a countdown timer, and this bezel rotates smoothly and precisely. It is functional and understated (see a trend here?) but does not feel as sturdy or precise as the excellent bezel used on, say, the Monster series of dive watches. Water resistant to 100 meters. Hands and markers are luminescent, with average lifespan of glow in the dark time, maybe four to six hours or so of readability in the dark I would estimate.
All in all, this is a good watch for people who want to own one watch. It's not especially collectible, and doesn't have much of a dynamic personality. It will get the job done and work well and last long in the process. Think of it as the Toyota of watches, though without the current recall issues. If you are a guy with small wrists who need a reliable and reasonably attractive watch, you probably won't go wrong with buying this especially at the excellent Amazon price offered at time of this review. If you're a watch buff who likes to collect timepieces with character, you may want to pass on this. The "eternal-battery" feature is nice and the kinetic charging feels somewhat grittier than the bland potted plant solar charging systems offered by Casio and Citizen, but this particular example of the Seiko Kinetic line is not built for personality.
*** Product Information and Prices Stored : Sep 03, 2010 10:00:38 ***
