Although I don’t own any of these yet, but after a lot of research online and also personally visiting watch shops and going into the details of horology I have finally settled at these three Seiko diver models among whom I have to choose one.
As far as trust is concerned I have blind faith because my father’s Seiko 5 sports is working for over 30 years without any complaint, and that speaks about their craftmanship.
Seiko uses in-house built movements for all of their watches. So it can be explained like an old Philips radio is still better than the digital Chinese made small transistors of whose all parts are made in different dingy workshops.
Seiko offers a variety of price range as less as Rs. 2500 to as high as Rs. 5lacs to 6lacs for their Kinetic and GMT grand Seiko models, which puts Seiko is the same bracket as Rolex, Patek Phillipe or even a notch higher to Omega. But! that’s out of reach folks!
So let’s have a look at the entry level diver’s watches SKX009 & SKX007 and SKX023(my favorite), SNZF17.
SKX007 & 009 are actually robust diver watches which can withstand upto 200mtrs of compression.
While SNZF17 & SKX023 are more of sports watches although they are marked upto 100mtrs. But aesthetically these two have a display back which means the mechanism is visible through the glass back which makes these two a slight more elegant, however the lack of lume dot on the rotating bezel is worry.
All of the three have hardlex crystal which has a hardness of 9 on hardness scale while sapphire glass has a hardness of 10, but hardlex has better shatter resistance due to it’s being more on elastic side than sapphire glass.
Rotating bezel features 120clicks and very smooth unidirectional movement.
Lug width for SNZF & SKX is 22mm while SKX023 has 20mm, so you can choose from a variety of bracelets or rubber straps or leather straps or nato straps(if you are a James Bond fan) to fit.
Check out guys and tell your worthy views!