Seiko Sportura Kinetic Direct Drive WatchSeiko is not one of those brands spending millions on marketing whilst turning out insignificant dalliance in the most insincere of ways. The complications are only superficial, without serving any specific purpose unlike certain pedigreed timepieces that look that way. Seiko spends more time in the lab than in playful coquetry and dreams-up different movements (and other specifics) without any redundancy to kill the pleasure of owning a piece of watch-making heritage, only discovering later it was all insidious BS.

Seiko’s beauty is it is honest in its every claim. No inflated, ludicrous statements on what a watch can do and cannot and they maintain this honesty in all the flavours they bring. Traditional quartz and/or mechanical automatics; the quartz-Kinetic movement or the Q/Kinetic Direct Drive, all combine the best (and sometimes, a little beyond) that the said money can fetch.

For the absolute rookie, the Kinetic movement is a simple idea involving the rotor (from a mechanical/automatic movement) and hook it up to a set of gears that magnify the rotor’s turns, which again rotates a motor to create the electrical charge that the capacitors absorb for later release in controlled, metered doses. With this, you keep the factory seal (or in better terms, the longevity) of the Seiko Flightmaster Watches intact for close to forever. Initially, you may need to keep a Kinetic watch on for a substantial number of hours to fill up the capacitors completely; if you wear a watch only to the club or on occasions, this may drain the electrical storage units dry and reduce the amount of total charge it can hold.

To cut down this problem, Seiko introduced Direct Drive. Pushing the button to know the remaining volume of charge goes a step ahead; now it allows you to charge to your will and see the gain real time. The Seiko Velatura Chronograph is a heightened level of interactivity, or so the wearers say.

The Direct Drive; however, doesn’t say how many months or days you got in reserve; it just tells you how long can you run approximately on the remaining charge, without further charging: M for month, W for week and D for day, and finally, to hours. But nevertheless, it adds to utility and vastly improves the aesthetic appeal.

The other way the power gauge indicator works is it moves with turning of the crown, showing the power generated with each turn. Once the winding is done, it shows the gain; the power level rises.

The Seiko Sportura Mens Watch we are talking about is a very high-contrast piece with great legibility. It’s rich and attractive; a higher-end, entry-level watch, evident from the great attention to the details.

Whether the large, indicator-arc is enhancing an overall aesthetic appeal is a personal preference, but a little distraction from sheer elegance is a contrast well suited to those orbits where risk-taking gets the praise.

A really thin profile, which is wonderful and the case finishing in polish and brush is impeccable! But the real taste of this Seiko hybridized quartz/mechanical is in its wearing. Fun interactivity of mechanicals with razor-sharp quartz accuracy! That’s gonna blow you off!