SAST007 « AZ Fine Time Blog

For post 5 and review 3 of AZ Fine Time‘s week long blog dedication to the Seiko Astron GPS Solar,we bring you the SAST007. The all black titanium model, which is also going to be a regular production model the same as yesterday’s SAST003.

Seiko Astron GPS Solar SAST007

On the Seiko Astron GPS Solar SAST007, the case and bracelet are Seiko proprietary High-Intensity Titanium, with Seiko’s in house black hard coating process. The SAST001 also has this black hard coating and you can see more about it HERE. This model is even more stealth being all black with only white hands and indexes. The piece is very sharp looking and subtle, but very easy to read with the white contrast. The overall feel of the watch is identical to both the SAST001 and SAST003, weighing in at only 135g’s. The other nice touch on the black coating is that it has a combination brushed and polished finish, which is unusual to see in a black coated watch. It adds great detail to what could be a plain matte black finish.

Seiko Astron GPS Solar SAST007

As I mentioned in our previous posts, the Seiko Astron GPS Solar is only possible due to some new technology Seiko had to develop over the last 10 years. The 1st discussed was a new ultra-low power consumption GPS receiver, that consumes only 1/5th the power of a typical GPS device. The second was a new High-Sensitivity Antenna Ring, that sits underneath the watches ceramic bezel to allow much easier reception.

Seiko Astron GPS Solar SAST007

Today, we are going to talk about the a new power system, that ensures a stable power supply and is also low energy consumption. The best comparison to how this system works would be a cell phone. The watch, like a cell phone, uses lithium ion batteries that are rechargeable, and on the Astron, recharged by light. If you were to start charging your phone when the battery was only half way drained, this would effect the battery life and make for a much shorter time of charge. With light constantly recharging the Astron, this could cause a problem. To prevent this issue, Seiko has developed a new integrated circuit to protect the battery and utilizes a secondary back-up battery to keep the energy draining/recharging consistent, and in turn preventing any issues with the battery life. This is some pretty amazing technology that every phone could use, and leave it to Seiko to develop it! And to think, all this is possible using only 1/10th the power of a cell phone.

Seiko Astron GPS Solar SAST007

I’ve been going over the various functions of the Astron’s throughout our reviews. Yesterday, I discussed the “In-Flight Mode”, which turns off GPS reception for while in an airplane. While in “In-Flight Mode”, a feature that could come in handy is the manual timezone adjustment. If you wish to manually adjust your timezone, it is a very simple process, that takes a matter of moments. All you would need to do is hold down on the lower right button for 3 seconds, and the second hand will jump to the current city you are in. By pushing the upper or lower right button, you can scroll through the cities. Once you have reached your desired city, you will let the hands adjust and once they stop, push the upper left button to go back to timekeeping mode. Since the watch recognizes all 39 timezones, and will receive reception from GPS satellites anywhere in the world, this feature will not need to be used often. You can also always check the current city setting by briefly pressing the lower right button.

Seiko Astron GPS Solar SAST007

Stay tuned for tomorrows review on the SAST009 on the AZ Fine Time Blog. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to call us at 1-800-486-3996.