Citizen has introduced a new Altichron to the Promaster family of watches. This series has always struck me as kind of gleefully over the top, even more than many of the crazy dive watches we talk about in these pages frequently. The whole idea behind the ?Promaster? branding is to show Citizen?s prominence in designing watches that can take on land and air in addition to sea, but sometimes we get caught up in the dive watch aspect of it all given the importance of watches in that niche to the culture of contemporary watch collecting. The Altichron is, effectively, a souped up field watch made with mountaineering in mind, and it has a number of features that should make athletes who spend their time at higher elevations quite happy. For the rest of us, there?s still a lot of cool tech to gawk at, which is a perfectly acceptable way to enjoy a watch like this in my book. 
The key feature of the Altichron is its altitude sensor, which allows for measurements up to 32,800 feet above sea level (Mt. Everest, for the record, is a little over 29,000 feet above sea level). Also, just in case you?re the multidisciplinary sort, you?ll get an accurate reading up to 300 meters below sea level as well. The altitude meter is read via an inner dial for the first 900 meters above sea level, and then via a subdial at 9:00 for higher altitudes. The Altichron is also equipped with an electronic compass that shows your heading via a gauge around the dial?s perimeter. The layout, as ...