Coutura Men’s Solar Perpetual Calendar Alarm Chronograph Watch

Seiko’s excellent design and quality combined with great looks and value
Other reviewers have already captured this watch’s excellent value, feature set, looks and quality. Below are my observations; I’ll summarize that this is a dress watch that makes slight trade-offs for looks over functionality (rather than being a sports or everyday watch), and is really well designed and manufactured for that purpose.NOTE: You must properly set the watch the first time around, otherwise calendar and alarm may not work right. It’s all in the manual! Shouldn’t have to touch it again for a long time.Battery: It’s solar-powered, so you shouldn’t have to replace the battery for a long time.Size and fit: The case size of 44 mm is on the smaller side for men’s chronographs these days, and should work for more wrists. The lugs curve downwards from the watch back (rather than going straight out, or being offset by a domed back), helping the watch wrap nicely on my thinner wrist. There’s plenty of removable links – in fact, they *all* can be removed (no one’s going to, but just so you know).Functions: I compared this to a Citizen PCAT, which was also in the running. Seiko’s functions are easier to use – lower side button for chrono, upper side button for checking date-month-year-battery reserve. Pull crown to position 1 for setting alarm, position 2 for setting time and calendar. Missing are world time, multiple time zones, and radio time sync (compared to more expensive Couturas and the Citizen PCATs), but those weren’t worth the premium for me.Buttons: Two side buttons, that shouldn’t get pushed accidentally, thanks to the raised “shoulder” of the crown, as well as their own resistance and clickiness (might take some time getting used to). The alarm is set using the side buttons rather than by turning the crown. In some contexts, holding the button pressed will move the hands faster (like when setting the alarm or the time/calendar).Dials and hands: Top dial is for day, date-hand function indicator and power level. The “day arc” dial is less common in watches, and I like how it’s done here. Bottom dial is alarm time/chrono hour+minute. Left dial is always seconds. The normal second hand is actually a calendar hand on this watch, cycling between displaying date, month and year when pressing the top side button. It’s much more readable than a small date dial, of course less so than a date window – but the date hand is unique and works for the look of the watch vs a date window.The big dials has 1/5th second markings for the chrono functions, but these are missing near the big 5-minute markers – for looks I guess, but I’d have preferred if they had kept the fine markings everywhere.Hands are nicely styled, with the hour and minute hands having plenty of LumiBrite. The calendar hand is really thin; a bit more width would have been nice. Other markings are white against black, no LumiBrite here – will be difficult to read in “mood lighting”.Materials and build: can’t complain, solid parts are solid, moving parts are well-fitted, glass is sapphire crystal and flat, water resistance of 100 m is adequate (not planning on scuba diving with this dress watch). The polished silver band will slowly scratch, so enjoy it while it lasts. After that, declare it “brushed metal”? The band styling is unique to the Coutura line, as far as I can tell, and quite attractive.You won’t find a replacement band from Seiko, so take care of the original (or maybe buy a busted Coutura for the band if you must).Comparable watches: Seiko SSC787 is this watch but in silver with blue tone. Citizen PCATs offer similar dial layout, more features (time zones, tachymeter, radio sync, and 200 m water resistance, but lack month-year) at a higher price.Finally, be careful where you buy it from – either get it from Amazon.com directly, or an authorized Seiko seller. My first attempt landed me a “new” watch from an inventory liquidator, and many of the negative reviews here appear to have had a similar experience.

Great finish / classy look
Easy to set up time and dates. But looked like like it was a returned product. Some items missing from the box.

A little wonky by design
It looks nice but if you want it to display the date, it is really funky to set. Once it is set, you need to go out of your way to read the watch to know what month/day it is. That is, you need to change the mode by pushing a button. This should be easy to see and obvious at all times instead. It would be better to just leave the calendar functions off of it and let it be a stylish timepiece. Also, for the price, it should pick up the time from radio waves like much less expensive ecodrive Citizen watches do.

The watch looked nice but the piece i was sent was defective
The second hand didn’t match with the 12oclock position and the time would not auto sync with the radio signal. The watch itself looked decent but the piece i was sent was defective.

Simplemente hermoso, las todos no le hacen justicia. Vale la pena cada peso y con un descuentaso de casi el 50% pues mucho más!

Muito elegante e bonito. Para alterar os comandos, é um pouco complicado.

It’s faulty 🤔