Armitron has been making affordable watches since the 1960’s. Recently, they’ve come out with their “Adventure” line, including a few solar powered pieces. They look good, and sport OK specs – but how great are they really? Do they hold their own as a reliable adventure watch? Are they worth their salt for an every day wearer? A special occasioner? I tried out the Armitron Adventure “AD/1000BKTI Solar-Powered Analog Watch with Black Stainless Steel Bracelet- 46MM”
Short answer? Not really – the Armitron Adventure Solar AD/1000BKTI looks good in photos, but its hollow links, misaligned second hand, fair/not great water resistance, and overall less quality feel don’t live up to the $150 pricetag. By my account, if you’re in the market for a solar powered basic adventure watch that can handle a long life of every day wear, give you quartz accuracy, and deliver a solid fit and finish, go with a basic Seiko Solar like the SNE331 (more outdoorsy, soft strap) or SNE325 (less outdoorsy, metal bracelet).
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First Impressions
- The box isn’t the highest quality – strictly budget here. But the watch in the case looks pretty darn good, actually.
- Love the red accents on the dial, and overall outdoorsy look.
- The watch started right up as soon as I exposed it to the sun. It has a nice “low battery” feature and ticks once every other second when the battery is low.
- This thing is big! 46mm is a bit big for my wrist. I suppose I should have considered that before ordering.
- Those hollow links – immediate impression when picking it up is that it’s lightweight – not necessarily a bad thing.
Fit and Finish
The color is consistent, the dial is printed well, the logos and nice and crisp, and overall fit and finish is great. HOWEVER, the main issue here is the second hand is misaligned – it ticks between marks on the dial. So it never ticks directly on 12 or any other markets. To me, that misalignment is a deal killer, and getting close to a defective product. I reached out to Armitron, and never heard back on if there’s a way to micro-adjust the hands to fix this. After realizing this misaligned second hand, things kinda came to a stop.
On The Wrist
It’s light, but that’s not necessarily bad. I think the pinging of the hollow links is really what got me. And glancing at that misaligned second hand killed me every time. However at a distance, it looks handsome enough on the wrist. So, it looks good enough to get you a date, but not good enough to turn that date into something more. 🙂
Standout Features
I love the solar quartz movements. In my mind, with solar tech far enough along nowadays, there’s really no reason to do a battery operated movement for quarts – go solar all the way and never change your battery. Unless of course you have some crazy dial.
Feedback
The Armitron Adventure line seems promising, and I certainly appreciate the brand heritage. But the sample I received had a few quality issues that prevent me from recommending it, especially at a $150 price point.
Here’s a video of that misaligned second hand. You can see the ticks go from accurate to inaccurate at various points.
Specs
- Case Diameter: 46mm
- Case Material: Ionic plated stainless steel case and bezel
- Dial: matte black dial with Arabic numerals
- Stainless Steel Bracelet
- Black ionic plated stainless steel adjustable bracelet with a one-touch, one button fold-over buckle
- Movement: Solar Quartz
- Features a calendar window, luminous hands and a solar cell to convert light into electrical energy
- Water Resistant up to 165 feet
