Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The watch dial is just a little bit glossy

At 43mm wide and not too thick at 13mm wide, the watch isn't small, but is certainly smaller than the biggy divers that we are all familiar with as of late. For me, the watch is a perfect mix of being large enough, but not being at all unwieldy. The steel case here is PVD black coated. You can tell that most of the case was brushed underneath the coating. There are more-or-less no sharp edges on the case at all. Running your finger over it is actually pleasing. Because the smooth texture of the coating combined with the many surfaces of the watch allow you to know exactly what you are touching without even looking. Which brings me to the rotating diver's bezel. At first I though it looked too rounded. Not sharp and precision cut like many of the much more expensive dive watches out there. The second you touch and use the bezel, you understand the concept. The bezel is not only easy to grip and read (even though it all black), but it does not cut into your fingers. Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Dive watches for example have beautiful looking bezels, but some of them are so sharply milled that you could actually cut yourself on them if you were too aggressive or scratched up against them harshly. The C600 though has a very pleasing to touch and use rotating bezel. It might look a bit funny, but it works real well. A serious diver, the watch is water resistant to 500 meters (what 50 ATM translates into). As such, Christopher Ward equipped it with a helium release (escape) valve. Not something you use very often, but a nice additional feature. I must admit that the feature is often mostly cosmetic, because that diagonally placed crown on the upper left of the case just always looks cool. It does have a use of course, but in the case of helium release valves, its utility is often outweighed by its style and ability to add "cred" to a watch. The watch crown is smooth to the touch (but grippy enough) just like the bezel. It screws down and has a guard built around it from the case to protect it. The 4.5mm thick sapphire crystal over the dial is domed a bit. This is often the case with watches that have a higher water resistance. Doming can often create visual distortion when viewing the dial from an angle. That, combined with glare from reflected light can make dials hard to read. The C600 has AR coating on the inside of the dial which helps to reduce glare. The easy to read dial and large hands are easy to read even with some mild crystal lens distortion.

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