BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
The Seiko 5 is Seiko’s affordable mechanical watch lineup, they offer great designs and features at reasonable prices and are something many people love because they can throw them on their wrist and then throw caution to the wind. To follow that style, Seiko has added two new 5 Sports Field GMT watches to the collection, and they are reference SSK023 and SSK025.
The watches measure 39.4mm x 13.6mm in height, which makes them perfectly sized for most wrists. On nearly every article we get someone commenting that the watch is too big if the piece is over 40mm, hopefully, these will satisfy those buyers for a bit. The 24-hour bezel is fixed on these, as it is on a Rolex Explorer-II, meaning that they’re suitable for timing in two timezones at once. Both watches are 100m water resistant. The watches are made of stainless steel and are silver (SSK023) or black (SSK025) in colour. SSK023 also comes with a steel multi-link bracelet. Meanwhile, SSK025 doesn’t get a bracelet but does get a black leather NATO strap to match the case.
Both watches have identical dials with a matte black surface, lumed hands and markers (that’s LumiBrite lume) and orange accenting. I think the orange draws a little too much attention to the seconds hand, though, where the lumed marker seems a little too big. I do appreciate the fact that the date windows have been colour-matched to the dials, you know how much I’m a stickler for this detail on most watches and I think it just works here.
Inside the watch is the self-winding calibre 4R34, which has a power reserve of 41 hours and a 3Hz beat rate, an undoubtedly hardy movement suitable for rough and tumble activities. This movement has what’s sometimes called a “flyer” GMT hand. On most GMT watches, the watch’s hour hand adjusts independently of everything else when in the GMT setting function. On the Seiko 5s, it’s the GMT hand that moves instead. It’s a small but interesting quirk (someone call Doug DeMuro), although it should be easy to adjust to. I’m sorry, that was such a bad pun, I’m going to have to punish myself by going for a nap.
Sometimes people say that it’s bad to be “the cheapest” something, and the Seiko 5 Sport Field GMT watches could well be the cheapest mechanical GMT watches around with prices set at $435. With that said, there’s nothing quite like a bargain and these Seikos have a lot to offer.
