Bulova Surveyor Automatic Review: Is It Worth It?

Bulova has aimed this squarely at the sunburst-dial dress-sports look that Tissot's PRX made unavoidable, but without the integrated bracelet, which keeps it more flexible and less distinctive. The case alternates polished and brushed surfaces in silver-tone steel; the dial is light blue with silver accents and a magnified date at three. The magnifier is the most divisive detail on the watch — it makes the date readable and breaks the calm of the dial.

This is the gap in the record. Bulova states that the watch is automatic with 21 jewels and a 42-hour power reserve, and stops there: no calibre number appears on the product page, the specification list or the packaging copy. The industry assumption for a Bulova automatic at this price is a Miyota, since Bulova belongs to Citizen, but Bulova does not say so and we are not going to print an assumption as a specification. If the movement matters to you, this is a watch to buy from a dealer who will open the caseback first.

An anti-reflective sapphire crystal at $495 is the headline, and it is genuinely uncommon at this price — Seiko is still fitting Hardlex on watches that cost the same. The caseback is an exhibition back, which is normally where an affordable automatic loses its water resistance, and here it clearly does: Bulova's own sheet says splash resistant rather than 30 m or 50 m.

Light blue sunburst with silver accents, applied baton markers and a date window at three under a magnifying lens. The sunburst does the work that a more expensive watch would do with texture: it changes tone completely between direct light and shade, which is why this colour has taken over the category.

A three-link steel bracelet on a push-button deployant clasp, with a 20 mm lug width. The lug width is the practical detail: unlike an integrated design, this watch takes any standard 20 mm strap, so a leather band turns it into a plain dress watch for the cost of the strap.

39 mm across is the size most people converge on, and the 20 mm lugs are proportional to it. The figures we cannot give you are the ones that decide fit: Bulova publishes neither case thickness nor lug-to-lug span nor weight for this reference. A 39 mm three-hand automatic on a steel bracelet is not usually a difficult watch to wear, but that is a general expectation, not a measurement of this one.

Bulova publishes no accuracy specification for the Surveyor. With the calibre undisclosed as well, there is no figure we can quote and none we are willing to estimate.