Thursday 20 August 2015

Free Way DN97 Watch

The other day I mentioned that Casio had made so many unusual and unknown watch ranges over the years, but the same is true for the other major manufacturers too. Sometimes, like today's watch, it goes even further to be hidden with no mention of the brands name anywhere.

This watch is marketed under a brand called Free Way (or sometimes Freeway). As I was trying to research it (which is difficult as the phrase Free Way occurs a lot online), I found some Japanese sales sites were referring to CBM Free Way. The CBM name refers to a company called Japan CBM Corporation which is actually a corporate division of Citizen Holdings Co., Ltd (owners of Citizen Watch Co., Ltd). So this means that the Free Way brand is a "secret" or "lighthouse" brand from Citizen (the same as Q&Q who are also under Japan CBM Corporation).

The Citizen link also fits with the design, as the display design is very like 1481010 D295 models.

This watch uses a DN97 module and is a two line LCD design, with the lines split by a plastic part behind the glass. The top line covers time (6 digits) while the bottom is for the date and day (along with indicator marks for am/pm and chronograph). The modes are changed with the top left button and are two alarms, stopwatch, timer, and dual time, with a small indicator mark above the display divide pointing to the text of which mode is active. There is also an el-backlight activated with the bottom left button.

The watch is very lightweight, due to it being made from Titanium, and has a matching Titanium strap, with the watch being 10atm water resistant.

The full model number is DN97-K293, and it was made in 1998 or 2008. As the design is similar to the 1481010 which is from the late 90s, I guess that the 98 date is more likely.

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