If you have read my previous comments about the Seiko Black Monster you will know that I am a HUGE fan of this watch. The first thing that hits you about this watch is the astounding amount of quality you get for such a low price. That value, in turn, comes freedom, and here’s how…

Having a watch like a Black Monster takes away any consideration you might have for that watch. You KNOW that this watch can handle ANYTHING, and what’s great is that if you knock it around to destruction, just buy another one! Get it stolen? buy another one! They are SO cheap and yet have the accuracy and all the features you’d find in a $5,000 Rolex. Their luminous treatment is the brightest I’ve ever seen, it has a diver’s extension, bezel, both a push-button clasp and a foldover clasp for added security, and it’s an AUTOMATIC.

Here’s a picture of the little guy here in the office:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

If it’s raining, snowing, or if I’m going snowboarding or rock climbing, the first and ONLY watch I consider is my Seiko Black Monster. When one of my buddies and I saw Radiohead at Nissan Pavilion this past Sunday, the rain was treacherous and we were soaked to the bone. My Black Monster, however, was immaculate!

What can I say, it’s a trooper, and unlike my Rolex Submariner I can take it anywhere without the awareness of having a $5,000 watch on my wrist that some junta would gladly chop my arm off for.

But while that sounds all well and good, one thing to keep in mind is that you are not ALWAYS doing things that are EXTREME!!! In fact most of the time I’m usually just sitting around and being a lazy pig. And to me wearing such a chunky diving watch while watching TV or getting comfy with your best girl is just a little too much. To me it’s like taking a Humvee and trying to thread it through New York City traffic. It’s just not necessary!

I love the watch when I’m off being a adrenaline junkie, but in the civilized world it is a little much. First of all, it is VERY heavy and really chunky. The case is as thick as a sandwich and the weight really makes itself known when you are mellowing out.

The weight, however, is not so bad. The most important gripe I have with this watch is that it is an automatic watch that cannot be manually wound. In other words it means that in order to keep the watch wound and powered I have to wear it for a certain amount of time or else it will stop when left alone.  This is one reason why the Seiko Black Monster can afford to be so cheap.
In contrast, a “normal” automatic watch allows you to manually wind a watch by rotating the crown and thus bypasses the need to use the rotor to wind the watch. For comparisons sake let’s compare the use of a whisk to a blender in creating a batter. The Seiko Black Monster would be the whisk in that you need high energy movements for a longer period time to make a batter. A “normal” automatic watch, however, would be like a blender in that you just simply press a button and it does the work for you.

If the Seiko Black Monster were my only watch that would not be much of a problem as my wearing it every day would power it enough, but the problem is that it is not my only watch, and as of yet I do not own a watch winder, so the end result is that I wear the Black Monster a whole lot more than I want to, and just end up manually winding and neglecting my other watches.

When it’s all said and done, the Seiko Black Monster may be as tough as Sylvester Stallone and my personal choice if there should ever be a nuclear holocaust, but has the downside in that it hogs your attention just like a newborn baby.