The Citizen Watch Company offers an extremely affordable integrated bracelet 1970s inspired watch in bright colours. Clearly the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak is the design standard for this style of watch. So along comes Citizen with a brightly coloured offering that looks great in summer and I’m in.

Shiels Jewellers was running a major promotion nationwide, so for $449 I have myself a Citizen Tsuoya to wear around. Whilst I have plenty of high quality watches in my collection, the Tsuoya is a cheaper integrated bracelet version of a highly popular reincarnation of a winning design formula. As I selected the yellow dial NJ0150-81Z, this version is surprisingly similar to the Rolex 124300 Oyster Perpetual. So, the Tsuoya will be a casual daytime summer watch for wearing out.

So the Miyota Calibre 8210 is a simple automatic movement, this is viewed through the exhibition caseback, this is somewhat unusual as this is an unfinished movement. Still, this is what designers are delivering these days and it does make sense if this is the only watch in your collection, or the only automatic you own. If you have some other automatic watches, then this display caseback will be a bit underwhelming.

The power reserve is approximately 40 hours, this is sufficient as I do not comprehend the obsession with extended power reserves at the sacrifice of accuracy. The movement has a +/- 20 second accuracy, sufficient for a watch in this price bracket. The Calibre 8210 beats at 21,600 vph, so this is pretty much what you would expect. This will appeal to budget minded collectors who cannot afford an Oyster Perpetual, Seamaster or Carrera and want a racy contemporary styled watch.

The dial is remarkably similar to the Oyster Perpetual with baton hands, single index markers and double index markers at the 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock positions. There is a small date window at the 3 o’clock position that does not have a date frame in an attempt to make the date window look larger. There is a cyclops over the date window, not sold on this feature, but I see why they included it. The crown at the 4 o’clock position is a little difficult for me to set as it is recessed in the 40 mm case, still, I like the different design here. What is interesting in a watch of this price range is the sapphire crystal, I did not really expect that.

Citizen Watch Company is one of the biggest watch manufacturers in the world, they own a number of watch manufacturers from Bulova, Alpina, Accutron, Frederique Constant, and Arnold & Son and are an excellent budget choice. There is discussion that Citizen will take the mantle of affordable Japanese quality away from Seiko, especially since Seiko has raised their prices without the quality control improvements and movement accuracy.

I already have a Citizen Promaster in my collection, so I changed out the rubber strap for a TAG Heuer S/el style bracelet. I also have a quartz chronograph with a really rattly bracelet. What is interesting is the President style bracelet, this was made famous on the Rolex Day/Date, I have never been a fan of the fluted bezel design of the DateJust and the Day/Date models, so I am interested in the wearability of the Citizen bracelet.