View the Seiko SBQJ015 Photo Gallery.

When I realized that most of my collection had shifted toward divers and sports watches, I started to keep an eye out for something a little more elegant — something that might be slightly more at home with dress shirt than a 15mm high piece of military equipment or a plastic digital G-Shock. The problem was that I refuse to sacrifice functionality for looks. I love handsome watches, but they have to work as well as they look, or I'm not interested.

The Seiko SBQJ015 is an excellent balance. It's a handsome watch with just the right amount of bling for me (meaning very little), and it has an incredibly impressive list of features:

• Titanium case and bracelet tempered with a process Seiko calls Diashield which essentially makes the titanium much harder than stainless steel. (I've worn mine in all kinds of situations, and it doesn't have a single scratch.)
• Sapphire crystal.
• Perpetual calendar.
• GMT hand.
• Independently adjustable hour hand which allows you adjust the time when traveling between time zones without having to stop the watch or change the minutes.
• Equipped with Sieko's famous 8F56 movement which is accurate to within ±20 seconds per year. That's about as much variance as you can expect to see per month in an average non-atomic quartz watch.
• 10-year battery.
• Water-resistent to 100 meters, or about 330 feet.
• A perfect 40mm in diameter (for my narrow wrist, anyway) excluding the crown, and about 44mm total.

Just announced at Basel is an interesting advance from Seiko: a bitmapped grey-scale E-ink display with 80,000 pixels and 300 dots per inch, comparable to a good laser printer. Claimed to be a real product and not just a concept, it has amazing promise for programmable, legible displays. Photo-accurate moonphase? Graphics of twilight? We've liked the E-ink watches we've seen so far, so this is tremendously interesting, and we'll be looking for a release date and price.

Also of note is the fact that each pixel can display four levels of grey — that's new on watches, though the Kindle and its ilk have had it for a while.

Without giving numbers, Seiko claims it uses 1% of the power previously required, so hopefully the battery life will be at least a year. I'm not fond of watches I have to recharge every week.

By Paul Hubbard

The Seiko SBCM023 is a deceptive watch. At first glance, if you look at the bezel, case, bracelet and dial, it appears to hail from their line of SKX mechanical divers. The guarded crown at four o'clock position, the SKX hands, and thick lume all conspire to deceive. A closer look at the dial with its "perpetual calendar" text tells the informed observer that this is, in fact, an unusual quartz movement.

Let's start with the impressive and somewhat unusual specifications:

• 316L stainless steel case and bracelet.
• Screwdown crown and caseback.
• Water resistant to 200m (660ft) -- diving-rated according to ISO6245.
• LumiBrite lume on hands, markers, and bezel pip
• 8F35 quartz movement: 192kHz, accurate within 20 seconds per year.
• Mineral crystal class.
• 12mm by 39mm, 140g.
• Perpetual calendar.
• 10-year battery.

Please read on for the full review and pictures.

The Seiko Ananta collection we wrote about is hitting the streets in October, and to promote the launch, Seiko is running a contest to win one of the $3,200 chronographs pictured here.

The contest is called "I love my Seiko," and to enter you simply make a 15-45 second video of why you love your Seiko and email it to ilove@seiko-watch.co.jp

You can also see the Seiko channel on YouTube for more information; I assume they'll post the winner there.

The deadline is August 30th, only 4 days from now, so get shooting! Seiko has emphasized that the video quality is less important than the story, so don't let equipment be a barrier here. This watch is worth a try!

By Paul Hubbard

One of the frustrations of being a Seiko fan is that many of their finest watches are only released to the Japanese domestic market. At this year's Basel watch fair, Seiko announced the global release of more models under a new line called Ananta. Described as "an exclusive collection of luxury timepieces with Spring Drive and high-grade mechanical movements, targeted at those who truly understand and appreciate fine watchmaking."

Ananta includes both high-grade mechanical as well as SpringDrive watches, giving us Seiko fans ample material for appreciation. Look for more posts here as we learn more.

Read on for more details.

Introduced in 1961, the Alpinist line has been Seiko's product for upscale outdoorsmen. Designed for the 'Yamatoko' or 'mountain man,' these are watches for those who hike and climb mountains. Over the years, Seiko has introduced both mechanical and quartz versions, many with compass bezels and usually waterproof to an unusual 200m (660ft).

The Alpinists are now being redesigned with three new models set to drop in late July for the Japanese domestic market. The case shape has changed considerably, and the crown is now at the 4 o'clock position, and from these pictures, it appears that they're using a variant of the classic SKX-series divers' watch case.

There are three new models, all with the 6R15 mechanical movement.

The first one I want to talk about is the ion-plated black SARB063 (top right). List price on this is 71,400 Yen, or about $720 USD. For that, you get a plated case and bracelet which gives the watch a fashionable flat black look. The black-framed hands are a trifle less legible but still quite readable in my opinion. The white-on-black bezel pops visually, and looks very functional.

Next is the SARB059:

There aren't a lot of people who need a watch that can survive the airless void of space, but Richard Garriott happens to be one of them. He's headed for the International Space Station and some extra-vehicular activity (spacewalking). Garriott could have just chosen to wear the vacuum-rated Omega Speedmaster, or maybe a Fortis Cosmonaut, but instead he turned to one of my favorite watchmakers: Seiko.

Seiko has a long tradition of creating limited-edition watches for explorers in extreme environments. They've made some extraordinary watches, and routinely use the lessons learned in later production models. For example, they made Landmasters for trips to both poles (the GMT hand goes counter-clockwise for the Landmaster South Pole!), an amazing shrouded diver for commercial divers, a ceramic and titanium masterpiece for Mt. Everest, and even a watch specifically designed for hikers of Japan's mountains. As most of these are limited editions, they are tragically hard to find, and rarely even seen.

For Garriott, Seiko has designed a true masterpiece introduced this year at BaselWorld: the Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk. Have a look at these features:

• Spring Drive 5R86 movement for accuracy under the extreme temperature swings of space (-20° to +70° Celsius, or about -4° to 160° Fahrenheit).
• Titanium case with the sides etched out by a new CNC (computer numerical control) machine that Seiko built in order to help get the weight down to only 92.5 grams.
• Completely air-tight case capable of surviving direct exposure to space.
• Oversized buttons for use while wearing space gloves.
• Domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating.
• Waterproof to 100m, or 330ft (in case of a water landing, I guess).
• 12-hour chronograph.
• GMT hand for 24-hour UTC time (which is used in both space and aviation).
• New luminescent material that Seiko says is three times as bright as a typical luminescent watch.
• A special dial and hand design for maximum readability.
• 53mm by 15.2mm which is huge.
• Limited edition of just 100 watches (price not yet announced).

They made some interesting design decisions on this one, and I'm smitten by the results. The dial is ultra-readable, with unobtrusive chrono hands, a subtle but still readable "there if you need it" blue skeletonized GMT hand, and bold white hour and minute hands reminiscent of the 6S37 Flightmaster. The power reserve subdial is subdued, and the date window is symmetric with the 9 o'clock marker. Blue makes a low-key accent, carefully placed to be non intrusive. The sculpted case and top-mounted buttons and crown (referred to as a "bullhead" design) make for a stunning and unique timepiece.

The Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk is to space what the new Rolex Sea-Dweller DEEPSEA is to the ocean. Even at 53mm, I'd happily wear it. It's gorgeous, functional, and built like a titanium tank. Let's hope Seiko introduces a production model soon.

Update (June 15): Richard Garriott gives us an update on how the Seiko Spacewalk is performing so far during training.

View the Seiko SKA367 photo gallery.

One of the things I enjoy about wearing Seikos is that there's so much to discover post-purchase. Often, a watch will have a coherent style that you find you enjoy long after it originally caught your eye. Let's take a closer look at a mid-line Seiko Diver to see what I mean.

Meet the Seiko SKA367, a yellow-faced Kinetic quartz dive watch with a typical complement of features:

• Waterproof to 200m (660ft).
• Stainless steel case with Hardlex mineral crystal.
• Quick-set and quick-change date window at 3 o'clock.
• Power reserve button to check battery level.
• Six month power reserve if not worn, with low-battery warning.
• Screwdown crown and caseback.
• 48mm wide by 15mm high.
• Stainless steel bracelet with dive extension (also available with a rubber strap).
• Lumibrite (Seiko's very bright luminescent paint) on the hands, bezel dot, and indices for nighttime readability.
• List price of $475, with street price of around $360.

When you first see the Seiko SKA367, the yellow face and high-contrast black hands leap out at you. The dial is eminently readable, and a very cheerful yellow color. The crown also has a yellow highlight band that matches the dial and lends the watch a nice stylistic coherence.

The past few years have seen steady growth in the diameter of men's watches. In the 1950s, a dress watch was expected to be slim and small, the normal size being somewhere between 32 and 35mm wide. These days, anything less than 38mm is considered dainty, and even 50mm and beyond isn't unheard of.

However, not everyone wants such a large watch, or for that matter, the bold styling that often accompanies it. These more traditional men seem to be the target market for Seiko's recently introduced line of four mechanical dress watches, all with classic styling and very conservative 36mm cases. They are based on the new 23-jewel 6R15B movement with both hand-winding and hacking, and are known as the Seiko Mechanical line.

Features of the new Seiko Mechanical line include:

• 6R15 23J Automatic movement with hand winding and hack function.
• Accuracy of +25/-15 seconds per day.
• 50 hour power reserve.
• 19mm drilled lugs.
• Sunburst dial finish.
• Water resistant to 100m (330 ft) with a non-screwdown crown.
• Mineral glass crystal and display caseback.
• 125g on the bracelet, 65g on the leather strap.
• 12.5mm thick, and 36mm wide.
• Pricing between ¥50,400 and ¥52,500 (about $465 - $485 USD).

View the Seiko Velatura SRH005 photo gallery.

I've always been a big fan Seiko Kinetic watches. There's something about generating power through physical movement that I somehow find more intriguing than a static and stationary solar cell. I like how you can hear the rotor turn, and even feel the friction that generates the power. And I like how the power reserve indicator let you know if you've been giving your Seiko Kinetic enough wrist time. It may sound strange, but there's something a little more alive about a Kinetic watch than its solar or battery powered counterparts.

With the introduction of the new Kinetic Direct Drive movement which appears in four of Seiko's new Velatura watches (two available in the US — the SRH001 and the SRH005), the Kinetic experience gets even more interesting. Kinetic Direct Drive movements allow the watch to be "hand wound". Before the Direct Drive, there were three ways to charge your Seiko Kinetic:

1. Wave it back and forth for a minute or two to spin the rotor. Anyone who has ever owned a Kinetic is probably familiar with this motion.
2. Wear it. Daily use is more than enough to keep a Kinetic watch sufficiently charged. It's only when you have a Kinetic that is part of an extensive watch rotation that you have to concern yourself with keeping it charged.
3. Place it on a Kinetic charging unit. You can buy charging stands which conduct power directly into the capacitor through the case and dial of the watch to essentially "quick charge" it.

But now with the Kinetic Direct Drive, you can charge the capacitor directly simply by turning the driving wheel. The procedure is certainly much more natural and subtle than the martini shaking motion of the past.

The Seiko Kinetic Direct Drive takes what I love about Kinetic movements to the next level by making the charging process not just active, but actually interactive. Shortly after you start turning the drive wheel to charge the watch, the power reserve indicator jumps to life and turns into a real-time power generation indicator. It's a bit like a Kinetic tachometer, you might say. Here's how it works: