The Breitling Watch Blog

Is it wrong for me to secretly covet another U-Boat? I’ve always kind of liked the idea of a black watch, but PVD is a definate no-no for me, since it can come off easily and can’t be fixed. Ceramic, while its a harder to scratch material, could totaly shatter or fracture if knocked hard enough, like the IWC Ceramic Pilot article that many have read.

I’ve owned a U-Boat Flightdeck Chrono in the past, but this ceramic dial with the cut-out arabics and markers along with the Ceramic case is really calling to me… oversized 50mm case, with little attention to movement detail are big minuses against the watch, but I can’t deny that the combination is enticing.

That’s the one that I am coveting, but with recent purchases of watches, I can’t justify buying a U-boat of this price range.

At first I thought this was only a ceramic bezel watch, but further reading indicates that it is fully ceramic case, and the ceramic bezel models have glossy bezels. U-Boat’s site is sufficiently vague in information and more or less useless for this kind of information.

Video review of the basic Tissot T-Touch in Stainless Steel on the bracelet. Good beater watch, and they look pretty good. Only problem is that everyone and their dog probably has one of these. Good size and it can take a beating so its a good watch. Swiss made by Tissot to very acceptable standards.

Zenith continues to direct their styling back to the Classic stuff they did, and away from the Defy and Chronomaster designs which defined the company during the last few years. This is refreshing after seeing some overly crazy looking designs from the firm.

The Captain comes in a 40mm stainless steel or in 18kt rose gold with display back showing off the Zenith Elite 670 movement.

Well, we outgrew the last server, so BreitlingSource moves to a shiny new server now to handle the load that we were exceeding and costing too much to maintain. Now the hosting costs even more, but should have lots of room to grow.

Hope you guys continue enjoying the site!

The new Jaguar XJ75 Platinum Concept car will feature a Bremont Clock on the dash, and it looks pretty sweet!! no details on whether it is quartz or mechanical yet, but it looks fantastic how it mounted.

Omega joins the numerous brands out there including Breitling with their own iPhone App! While not the most useful thing (most Watch Brand iPhone Apps aren’t) it does help bolster brand loyalty. And since most watch people are also especially vain and require the best and trendiest everything, they probably also have iPhones. Perfect! Yes, I just made fun of myself.

Download the Omega iPhone App here:
http://www.omegawatches.com/iphone

Another Dive Watch Company has launched a few months ago by the name of Red Sea Watches. Their watches are attractive dive watches machined from 316L Stainless Steel and feature Miyota Automatic Movements. The style of their watches reminds me of Marathon a bit, and the price range is similar as well albeit with a Japanese instead of Swiss movement.

Both watches they are currently accepting pre-orders for are $565 in stainless steel and $595 in PVD steel. 44mm Cases are also standard for both the Holystone and Six Poinder models. On the upside, each watch includes Bracelet, Rubber and Nato straps.

Nice looking pieces, but maybe a bit pricey IMO. Only the market will tell, however!

Dievas (pronounced “D-Ah-Vas”) is a Singapore based watch company that produces Military inspired timepieces which are mostly mechanical automatics. Some of the models such as the Vortex are made in Germany and I’ve been told uses the same cases that Kobold uses in their watches. They probably came to fame because of their Panerai Homage watches, especially the California dial ones.

The one I’m looking at today is the Dievas [Z]eta watch, which uses a Japanese movement, unlike most of their models which use Swiss movements. The Zeta is a cheaper model, but gives outstanding value, given the multitude of features. I ended up disliking the Camo-green dial, so ended up selling this one.

The large military-style dial measures a healthy 44mm in diameter, 52mm lug to lug, and is approximately 14.5mm thick. The dial has a criss-cross texture to it. Notice the Tritium tubes mounted on the dial, which are all manufactured by MB Microtec in Switzerland. These are the same tubs you will see on Ball Watches.

The chunky 22mm bracelet is solid stainless steel and has no taper, making it a bit uncomfortable but not unreasonably so. It has the standard flip-lock stamped clasp, and works well. The movement is the Japanese-made Miyota 8215, which has about 42hr power reserve and 21 jewels. Rather unremarkable, but at this pricepoint, the watch is very nicely made. The only downsize is the lack of hacking.

Here’s the head-on wrist shot. It fits my 6 3/4″ wrist quite well, I think. I find that 44mm watches work really well for my wrist size, and this Dievas [Z]eta is no exception. The watch lugs curve, and while it is a well made and sturdy watch, the case finish is much less refined than most Swiss and German made pieces.

Signed crown, with a deep machined “Dievas” printed on it. Screw down as well, with holes in the lugs for releasing the pins. Nothing to complain about here. Water Resistance is an impressive 300m.

And finally, the angle wrist shot. Elaborating more on the features, the watch also has the requisite Sapphire Crystal, abeit without AR coating. The bezel, believe it or not, is Ceramic too! Quite the bulletproof array of features if you ask me. Overall an outstanding value, but I would stick to the more conservative dial colors as the Green/Yellow started to bug me after a while.