Citizen Nighthawk vs Skyhawk

Sapphire is the specification the Nighthawk is missing, and on a watch with this much crystal area it is the part that decides whether it still looks right in ten years. 200m with a 22mm strap width.

Radio-controlled timekeeping means it sets itself from a time signal — combined with Eco-Drive, there is nothing to wind, nothing to change and nothing to set. It adds world time and an alarm over the Nighthawk.

45mm across, which is a great deal of watch, and Citizen publishes neither the lug-to-lug nor the thickness — so on a medium wrist you are buying blind on the one number that decides fit.

It sets itself by radio, runs on light and is rated to 200m behind sapphire — and it is a module, not a movement. When the module stops being made, the watch is finished, however good the case still is.

42mm rather than 45mm, with the same 200m rating, the same Eco-Drive light power and the same five-year warranty. For most wrists this is the more wearable of the two by a clear margin.

A genuine second time zone and a slide-rule bezel in a dial that is busy but legible, at a price well below the Skyhawk.

The mineral crystal is the real cost — it marks permanently where the Skyhawk's sapphire would not. Citizen also publishes no lug-to-lug, no thickness and no lug width for this reference, so strap changes are guesswork until it arrives.

200m, five years of cover and a second time zone from a watch you never wind, service or open. The mineral crystal is the cost, and on a 42mm slab of glass it is a cost you will eventually see.