SEIKOMen's SNK809 5 Automatic Stainless Steel Watch with Black Canvas Strap

Took a few tries and two different vendors to finally get my hands on 2 that are keepers. Two of four sent to me had cosmetic flaws-one blemished face, inside the glass, the other a blemished case, but once you get a cosmetically "good" one sent to you, this watch is simply beautiful. Very happy with both. Japanese eye for detail amazes me, especially for a watch this inexpensive. I'll consider the two blem. watches flukes and just concentrate on the two "good" ones. Build quality is excellent. Does my heart glad to know at least some companies still have their minds focused on quality at all price levels.After a week, neither has lost a minute. Second hand is tricky to sync, but even a few seconds behind my radio-synchronized wall clock, both keep good time. Like I said, glad I bought two. It's easy wearing and as light as a similar sized quartz watch. I bought this as a daily wearer in place of a much heavier swiss stainless mechanical monster I own. The time adjustment knob is a little small for my fingers, but that's not special to this watch. Had the same trouble with other brands too.I expect to enjoy many happy years with these watches. I'de heard of Seiko, but never heard of Seiko 5 before this, glad I came across the watch. The return process on the blems was painless, to Amazon's credit. Heard rumors that there are a lot of fakes being sold on the internet so I did someresearch. (Who fakes a $60 watch?!? geez..) Apparently this watch is grey market in the US, so anyone you buy will have a warranty card that is not filled out because it was not sold by an authorized Seiko dealer, so be warned. I don't expect warranty trouble, so I am not very worried. If I do, I'll take it to Seiko and pay the cash, or just buy another if repairs cost more than ~$40.00.Going by the tag on the band, Seiko's suggested retail price for this watch is $185.00 so Amazon's quite a bargain. In the future, I will buy directly from amazon, not one of their storefront vendors. The first order I placed was from an amazon vendor who had the watch to me strangely fast, but with no paperwork and in a generic plastic box, not the blue Seiko box. Watch was a blem so I sentit back, but the swapmeet style packaging and lack of papers disappointed me. I associate that with Ebay and stay away from Ebay for that exact reason. I also have reason to believe that the watch was not as new as the seller claimed- after all, where was the original packing that a "new" watch comes in? How would it go missing? That was the only watch of the 4 that came packed that way. All others had the blue box and all docs included. So if someone out there has watch #141073 (case ser.#) then you got MY old one.. at least one that was sent to me and returned, never worn, as a blem. That vendor also charged a new price for something that smelled a bit fishy. To my mind, new-looking watch, minus factory packing, minus factory docs, does not equal the going price minus two bucks. Need to drive the cheezeball vendors back to ebay from whence they came. Ate the shipping on that one.Amazon did hold up their end honorably in all cases. No complaints there. And I do love the watchesat the end of the day. If you are on the fence about this watch, then buy it. Great bang for the buck,near swiss attention to detail & fit and finish, well above and beyond the call of duty for a watch at this price. Keep up the good work Seiko. The quality is of the band is good, considering the price range. Seen worse, but not many better. When this band wears out, I will buy another just like itfrom Seiko. Let that be the final judgement on my views of the quality of the band. Heard some say the watch is a bit small for big manly wrists. On that point, I dunno. I think it's sized to look normal on the wrists of 95% of men. Some guys have big wrists.. ok, maybe not the watch for you if you are in that 5%. We also live in an era where absurdly large watches have become the norm, so that maybe skewing attitudes and perceptions a bit. I find the size of the face "just right" and I consider my wrists normal for a 6' + tall caucasian adult male.

I've had this watch for several months now and it's been running great! It may be the best watch I've ever owned. It's my first automatic mechanical watch, and I couldn't be happier to be free of batteries. It's definitely a bit different, and requires a bit more care in certain areas, but as long as you're aware of the differences of a mechanical watch vs a battery powered quartz then you know what those trade offs are. Like for example, don't change the date between 9 PM and 4 AM or you could damage the gears.But it's a durable watch, I've taken it swimming, had it in the shower, done dishes and bathed the kids and I don't have to worry about water, which is great. This is a great every day watch, or something you can take camping and don't have to worry about being in the elements. It's not a dive watch though, and I wouldn't exceed the resistence rating.The Lume looks great, and it's reasonably bright. It fades quickly from the brightest it can be, but as your eyes adjust to the dark it's not hard to see when it's dimmer.The watch strap is decent. The nylon makes it easy to clean after getting it dirty, and I've worn this while laying sod, which gets pretty dirty, then it was easy to wash up afterward. Again, this fits the field watch category perfectly, and you can wear it everywhere.It's pretty good on the accuracy, but I've found it does tend to run a little fast, and after a week or two I'm running a couple of minutes fast, so I do have to adjust the time every now and then if I don't want to be 5+ minutes ahead all the time. It doesn't wind down on me though, as long as I wear it every day there's no need to constantly adjust the time, which is nice. If I go more than a day then I have to wind it again, but that's really not terrible, and I just set the date and time and get back to work.It's also surprisingly quiet. I expected it to get loud with the constant ticking, but it's actually quieter than some quartz analog watches I've had. I can only hear the ticking if I hold it right up to my ear, and then it's a pleasant tick from a mechanical watch. But yeah, that one surprised me.I've had terrible luck with watches, and they always break. So I've never wanted to spend a lot of money on a watch. But this has been an excellent watch for me, and has stood up to the abuse. Perhaps it helps that it's not very big, and the profile is rather thin so it rarely gets caught on anything. But yeah, about 7 months or so of wearing nearly every day and it's been a champ!Very happy with my purchase and would buy it again.