We took a quick look of what kind of watches folks were wearing around the RainyDayMagazine office.  We came up with a selection of watches of varying quality and price. 

Some liked the Casio Pathfinder on the far right because of the built in digital compass and barometer.  Others liked the Seiko and Rolex for their chronograph features.  Most of the watches were water proof to about 3 ATM, have high quality bands, and were precised enough for use in Olympic time trials.

However, none of them were built expressly for folks that need to track a LOT of different time related events (time zones, sunrise, sunsets, moon cycles, parking meters, etc...).  The Solunar was created for all that and more!

The Solunar came in a fine presentation box with all of the quality one would expect from a much more expensive time piece.

The watch was crafted out of stainless steel.  We loved the matted silvery appearance of the sand blasted finish.  All of the fittings (crown, buttons, bezel) felt extremely high quality and precision made.  Appropriate edges were beveled and others were cleanly defined.

The clasp of the Solunar has a really nice positive locking pin which makes accidental release much more difficult.  A nice feature choice by SkyTime.

We will not detail each functional feature in this First Look review . The Sky Time website does an excellent job of describing each one.  We'll have more to say about the individual features in our First Use review later in July.

The face of the Solunar appears remarkably clean considering all of the information displayed by the watch.  One the back, note the individual serial number for the Solunar.  A nice little detail :-)

Setting the various time zones (top LCD, bottom LCD, 24 hr hand, bezel relative to the 24 hr hand) can be a bit tricky, especially if you were on the road and did not have the manual with you.  Fortunately, SkyTime has the manual on their website... so if you have web access, you can always download a copy wherever you happened to be.   We decided to set our two LCD display to show the local Boston time and the time in St. Petersburg Russia.

We also like the "parking timer", we think we'll find this feature especially useful for Boston! If you want to learn more about the other features (stopwatch, alarms, etc...) of the Solunar, go here.  You can also download the online manual and read in detail all of the specifics of the watch.

The last thing we needed to do before taking this watch out for a test run was to fit the band.  SkyTime provide a great little tool to make the adjustment a snap!

All we had to do was to line up the pin with the hole in the direction of the arrow and push.  The cotter pin on the band popped out easily.

Once we removed the desired number or links, the flat end of the tool made pushing the pin back into the hole a simple and scratch free procedure.  The final fit of the watch was excellent.

As to improvement recommendations based on this first look, we would have preferred a larger LCD readout since the contrast with the background can make it hard to read under certain lighting conditions.

We found the backlighting was a bit weak, but still quite sufficient.  The 24 hour hand with the SKY lettering in the middle looked a tad less in quality than the rest of the watch. 

OK, we did compare it to a Rolex which costed 10x as much, but we only did that because the rest (crown, band, clasp) of the Solunar went head to head with the Rolex just fine!

Everybody here at RainyDayMagazine will get their chance to wear the Solunar over the course of the Summer.  We'll post more comments as we see fit.  Feel free to send us questions if you are considering purchasing this watch and can't wait until then :-)

RainyDayMagazine have field reporters in all different time zones.  Sometimes it is difficult to remember what time it is where they are.  When it is 11:28AM in Boston, it is 8:28AM in LA, but what time is it in St. Petersburg Russia?  What about Hong Kong or Taiwan?  Which one is an hour ahead?

With the Solunar from SkyTime, we are hoping we'll finally be able to keep it all straight.  The Solunar is suppose to be able to track 4 different time zones AND when our parking meter will expire!

In this RainyDayMagazine "First Look" review, we'll report on our initial impressions of this time piece.

We'll also use it throughout the summer and report back on its performance. Come back in the Fall and check out the review again to see how it held up "In The Wild"!

Review Summary:

Initial Impression- Tough watch

Usability- Feature rich

Durability- Test in progress

Price- List price: $275