Friday, March 22, 2019

Deep Divers in the Collection (1000 Meters of Water Rating or More)

I love heavy duty divers and I have collected some of the deepest diving examples. This review will highlight my watches with 1,000 meters of water rating and do some form of comparison between them. As at the date of this posting, I have 14 watches with water rating of 1,000 meters or more.


Number
Movement
Material
Citizen
2
Automatic, Solar
Titanium
Seiko
2
Automatic
Titanium
Rolex
1
Automatic
Stainless Steel
Omega
1
Automatic
Stainless Steel
Deep Blue
2
Automatic
Stainless Steel
Ocean7
2
Automatic
Stainless Steel
Steinhart
1
Automatic
Titanium
Hamilton
1
Automatic
Stainless Steel
Bell & Ross
1
Automatic
Stainless Steel
BALL
1
Automatic
Titanium

The links to the reviews on these watches are as follows in no order of preference:
  1. Citizen Promaster Solarzilla 1000M BN7020-09E
  2. Citizen Promaster Autozilla 1000m NH6930-09F
  3. Seiko Marinemaster 1000m SBDX011 
  4. Seiko Perspex Marinemaster SBEX001G 
  5. Rolex Oyster Perpetual Deepsea M116660-0001 
  6. Omega Seamaster PloProf 1200 M Co-Axial
  7. Deep Blue Pro Seadiver 1k Blue Dial
  8. Deep Blue Depthmaster 3000m Green
  9. Ocean7 LM-8 Professional Deep Diver
  10. Ocean7 LM3 V2 1250m Dive Watch
  11. Steinhart TRITON 1000 Titanium Titan
  12. Hamilton Khaki Navy BeLOWZERO 
  13. Bell & Ross BR02-92 Pro Dial Diver Watch
  14. BALL Engineer Hydrocarbon DeepQUEST
     

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Head-To-Head: Seiko Prospex Alpinist Solar Titanium Multi-Sensor SBEB013 versus Casio Protrek Adventure Titanium Triple Sensor Ver. 3 PRW 3000 T7

ABC (Altimeter, Barometer & Compass) watches are the ultimate adventurers' timepiece. In the intervening period between pure mechanical and satellite linking watches, Casio led the way in innovation as well as some excellent examples especially under the Protrek series. Unknown to many, Seiko too has some interesting examples in this genre. This review shall compare Seiko Prospex Alpinist Solar Titanium Multi-Sensor SBEB013 (left of the photo below) against Casio Protrek Adventure Titanium Triple Sensor Ver. 3 PRW 3000 T7 (right of the photo below). In the spirit of transparency, I do own both models and hopefully I can provide an unbiased view in this short report.


Monday, March 4, 2019

Head-To-Head: Seiko Perspex Marinemaster 1000m Hi-Beat SBEX001 versus Seiko Perspex Marinemaster Professional 1000m Automatic Diver SBDX011

Technology in mechanical watches interest me immensely. One area that I follow closely is on dive watches, specifically extreme dive watches. Seiko has a number of watches that represent the best in technology. I am blessed to be able to own two of them, the 1000 meter SBEX001 (on the left of the photo below) as well as the iconic SBDX011 Emperor Tuna (on the right of the photo below).


Friday, March 1, 2019

Seiko 5 Sports Automatic Blue Reference SRPB85K1 (similar to SRPB79K1, SRPB81K1, SRPB83K1) - A Great Starter Watch for a New Collector, A Review (plus Video)

The SRPB85K1 was launched in 2018 without much fanfare. Not surprising as Seiko tends to keep Seiko 5 product launches extremely low-key. Although there were a number of such releases last year, most were generally cosmetic changes to a basic design - last year, the bulk appears to be dive watch related.

One that caught my eye was the SRPB79 - 86 Series (please refer to a short introduction to the series as the end of the review), specifically the SRPB85K1.

The SRPB85K1 comes with a countdown timer. As the name suggest, the scale provided allows one to set a target time (within 60 minutes) and set the bezel so that when the minutes hand reaches "0", target time has been reached.

The countdown timer bezel is seldom seen on a Seiko sports watch. Most of the new Seiko 5 Sports launches throughout 2018 came with a movable bezel, either a dive timer bezel, a compass bezel or a 24-hour bezel.

Unfortunately, it is not as flexible as a dive timer. A dive timer can be used to track not only the amount of time spent doing something (like diving) but also be used to track a secondary timezone. It is because of this flexibility that watch makers tend to produce more dive timer equip watches.

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