Review: Citizen’s Promaster Diver Might Be The Best $300 Dive Watch

In the pantheon of go-anywhere-do-anything watches, divers are perhaps one of the most coveted everyday-capable contenders. Maintaining equal parts good-looks and built-in timing features, a dive watch can carry you through a plethora of daily tasks, even if you’re not employing one to explore the Earth’s last uncharted frontier. 

However, there stands a select few purpose-built divers that are great for both, attractive enough to function as everyday units and constructed with more than enough utility to pull double-duty as a hard-wearing tool. 

Today, we’re talking about the classic Citizen Promaster Diver. And, as if it weren’t enough to check both the aforementioned boxes, it has one of the most unique and exciting calibers to currently grace the sub-$500 price tier. 

Released in 1985, the Promaster has a history not nearly as long and storied as other archetypes we’ve covered in the past. However, Citizen’s origins date back to 1918 by the earliest accounts, under the name of the Shokosha Watch Research Institute in Tokyo, Japan. It was in 1930 that the Institute changed its moniker to a name proposed by then-Tokyo Mayor Shinpei Goto. Citizen was deemed a name that distilled the central purpose of his civic position: to reach the hearts and minds of Tokyo’s residents. Goto wished the same for Citizen’s watches. 

Suffice to say, the vertically integrated venture under the Citizen banner has been nothing short of a success. Today, the classic Promaster embodies much of the same DNA as the very first Promaster reference, the Aqualand, but comes packed with an Eco-Drive caliber that utilizes any available light source for power. 

Let’s jump right in.

At a Glance

Extreme sports and an interest in outdoor activity had been consistently growing off the back of counterculture in the late 1960s and reached its peak in the early ’80s. Citizen took notice, and with the assistance of its engineers, designers, and industry experts (in diving, mountaineering, aviation, etc.) developed a line they named the Promaster –– a portmanteu of “Professional” and “Master.” 

The Promaster Diver we have today is more of an evolution and less of an homage, seeing as the distance in time between the original Promaster Aqualand and the Promaster Diver is just under 40 years. The Aqualand was the first of three Promasters to test the market — one designed for the land (the Altichron), one for the seas (the Aqualand), and one for the skies (the Sky).

Although the modern Promaster Diver descended from the Aqualand, its shape and form are slightly different. Citizen eventually did away with the left-aligned depth gauge as well as the buttons that controlled a small digital display. You could say that, although the Aqualand is still around in a different form, this original Aqualand was the direct progenitor of the modern Promaster Diver (ref. BN0150-28E) everyone knows and loves now.

On the wrist, the Promaster Diver is built like a tank. It’s pretty well known in the watch space that Citizen goes head to head with fellow Japan-based Seiko for the best low-cost dive watch and it’s clear why. What Seiko doesn’t have, however, is the Eco-Drive powering the movement, which we’ll elaborate on below. 

The Promaster’s case diameter is deceptive. Most would read 44mm and discount it as another chunky, unwearable diver. But in this case, you’d be wrong. The short lugs go a long way to lessen the wearing experience and the entire unit, from caseback to bezel is only 11.5mm thick. Our wearer sports a wrist size just south of 8’’ and as you can see, it almost looks like it could pass for something as small as a 41mm. 

Looking at it from the side, you can see just how short we’re talking with those lugs. They’re thick, but stout and go a long way to lessen the size on the wrist. If you’re still concerned, Citizen actually came out with a 37mm version. But like its larger sibling, expect it to wear smaller since it wields the same lug proportions. 

One of the first things that will strike you about the Promaster is the thick uni-directional timing bezel encompassing the dial. Seeing as this was created as a “Pro” tool (pardon the pun), the bezel comes outfitted with six grip points with deep channels that extend from the very top to the very bottom, where it lays on the main case. The fully brushed marine grade stainless steel can take a beating and it comes equipped, naturally, with 200m of water resistance, courtesy of an offset screw down crown at the 4. 

Inset within the bezel is an aluminum insert with chunky numerals (not lumed) and a lumed pearl at the 12 that glows just a few shades more green than the rest of the lumed dial elements. The light takes on a rich shade of aqua in the dark, which I’ll say often glows bright hours into the night on my bed stand. 

Japanese divers have a very identifiable set of traits that set them apart from their Swiss counterparts. In fact, Japanese dive watches — and we’re talking about Citizen, Seiko, Orient, and Casio/G-Shock, to name a few heavy hitters — are among the most widely used with professional divers on the job, even over their more expensive contemporaries. 

Citizen divers boast the perfect blend of ingredients to make them appealing to actual professionals: durability, utility, price, and looks. Virtually all maintain chunky bezels and large case sizes. Sometimes they even feature funky case shapes and bright accent colors, with series specs in tow. 

The Promaster Diver’s dial is unmistakably on par. Even though the case itself spans 44mm edge to edge, the actual dial is much smaller by way of the chunky timing bezel acting as its frame. This is also, in part, what helps it wear smaller. 

Under a thick but extremely clear mineral crystal with heaps of anti-reflective coating, Citizen employs highly recognizable capped trapezoidal markers at the cardinal hour points (3, 6, 9, and 12) with classic circular markers sandwiched between. Each dial element, including the stout handset, is framed and inset with extremely bright lume. With a normal day of exposure to on/off direct sunlight, the Promaster’s lume glows a brilliant aqua blue for hours, not mere minutes. On my nightstand, I’ll wake up for a sip of water in the early morning and the Promaster will still be glowing enough to be readable in the dark. 

Professional divers have disclosed that this lume is so bright it can even affect visibility during night dives, ruining the eye’s natural adjustment to the dark. But don’t just take it from us; review after review on Citizen’s dot-com praises the lume applied to the dial. 

Naturally, the position of the date window follows the position of the screw down crown at the 4 and above the 6, Citizen discloses one of the most exciting elements of the Promaster Diver: its Eco-Drive movement.

The Eco-Drive technology powering many of Citizen’s references was introduced by the company in the mid-’90s to craft a watch that could be powered by any available light source, not just solar power. But the road to the Eco-Drive-powered Promaster started in 1972 when self-taught engineer Roger Riehl built the Synchronar 2100. It was a venture 13 years in the making and utilized a light-sensitive photovoltaic cell to convert solar energy into electrical energy to power the watch’s digital display. 

Although the Synchronar 2100 was a remarkable achievement, its sales (due to the company’s size) were modest compared to others like Seiko and Casio, both of which were quick to follow suit with their own solar-powered offerings. 

The real magic behind Citizen’s Eco-Drive that separates it from the pack is the caliber’s ability to capture, store, and then utilize natural and artificial light sources. Eco-Drive cells are designed to be far more versatile and adaptable to different lighting conditions than your off-the-shelf solar movements. 

This particular optimization allows the caliber to convert a broader range of light wavelengths, intensities, and sources into ready-to-store-and-use electrical energy. Although incredibly cool, don’t expect magic — because it’s just physics. Virtually any artificial light source (and by any artificial source, we mean it — LED lights, incandescent bulbs, computer and phone screens, etc.) will increase your charge times and will vary depending on the strength and output of the source. 

Citizen provides some rough estimates in the user manual according to the type of light, distance to the source, and intensity of output. For example at 100,000 lux or the average brightness of the sun on a cloudless day, you can expect a full charge (empty to full) in 11 hours. And after 2 minutes, you’ll get one full day of use time.

Inside your typical office building with diffused fluorescent tubes or LED lights, empty-to-full time varies so much that Citizen doesn’t provide an exact charge estimate, but in our experience, one day of use will take about 4 hours to charge. 

The E168 –– the Eco-Drive caliber inside this Promaster –– is also a more sustainable option over traditional quartz rivals in this price tier, like the popular divers from Seiko. Even though you won’t likely have to swap a battery for a decade (give or take), hundreds of millions of quartz watches are sold globally, which becomes quite the carbon footprint over time. 

If all goes according to plan, the lithium ion cell inside your Promaster will never need to be replaced. 

Shortly before the Promaster’s debut, the ’70s and ’80s saw the integration of rubber straps on divers, taking the place of metal bracelets in a big way. Large Swiss brands like Rolex and Blancpain were early adopters, and the strap company Tropic famously put rubber “waffle” straps on the map. 

Although there are metal bracelets rolled out for a select few Promasters, the majority utilize the black, wave-patterned rubber dive strap you see here. In this case, it’s a 20mm unit that sports a slight taper toward the buckle hardware to approximately 17 or 18mm. 

It’s highly flexible but very thick, so it may require just a touch of break-in until it settles comfortably on your wrist. Overall, it’s pretty straightforward so there’s not too much to report on here.

At the end of our reviews, we always ask ourselves – is this timepiece worth it? And in this case, how does the Citizen Promaster Diver stack up against the entry level dive watch competition? 

For that, we’ll have to look toward Seiko who manufactures the Promaster’s direct competition: both the Prospex Turtle, a dedicated diver, and the SKX007, a sports watch with a very similar offset 4 o’clock crown, a chunky timing bezel, 200m of water resistance, and a good-looking wave rubber strap like the Promaster Diver. 

If you’re looking past the external similarities (and there are many), we do have to give the leg up to the Promaster for the Eco-Drive movement alone. Available at Citizen’s website for $375, it’s a few hundred dollars less than both the SRPE03 (The Turtle) at $625 and the SKX007 for a wide variety of prices on the secondary market since Seiko discontinued both the 007 and 009 models in 2019 (however, you’ll typically see it above asking since it’s in demand).

Recap

Citizen Promaster Diver

Notable for its Eco-Drive solar movement alone, which uses both natural and artificial light sources for power, the Citizen Promaster Diver is one of our favorite sub-$500 watches on the market, with a bulky yet wearable case and fantastic lume.

Pros

• One of the best sub-$500 watches around
• Built like a tank
• Utilizes Citizen’s Promaster solar movement which gets powered by any light source
• Wears small despite large diameter
• Great lume

Cons

• Strap might take some time to break in
• Some might like the more expensive, yet similar Seiko divers, but you won’t get the same Eco-Drive movement
• Lume might be too bright during night dives

Learn More: Citizen