CLARIFICATION : There are lots of watches that look like dive watches, but those that are built to go deep under water typically have the word Professional in their name, or on the dial. All of Doxa's dive watches are profesional i.e. serious dive watches, but they named their orange-faced (orange-dial) dive watches Professional. Their blue-faced watches are called Caribbean, their yellow-faced watches are Divingstars, and their black-faced watches are called Sharkhunter.
I recently purchased a limited edition, Clive Cussler series Doxa 600T Professional, and experienced strong emotions as soon as I took it out of the box.
First, some history: in the mid 1960s Doxa S.A. made the original orange-faced dive watch--that is easier to read under water, and under poor light conditions. It's their invention, and they do it very well. Seiko has been in business since 1881, a full 8 years more than Doxa, founded in 1889.
Actually Seiko is more than 8 years older than Doxa, because Seiko has continuously been in business, while Doxa went bankrupt when low-priced Japanese quartz watches (including Seikos) killed the Swiss watch market. When I got PADI certified in 1988, and I was shopping for a dive watch, Doxa was out of business, so I had never heard of them. I saw some orange-faced Japanese dive watches at the time, but nobody explained to me why orange-faced dive watches were the bees knees, and I thought they were garish. Besides, I wanted a dive watch that I could wear with a suit & tie--hence my Heuer 1000m Professional--so I wasn't going to wear a loud orange watch.
Scroll forward to the late 2000s, when I realized that I regretted selling my Rolex GMT Master for a rip-off price to the watch repair shop, and I wanted a nice mechanical watch. I don't remember if I bought my Seiko Orange Monster before after I stumbled across Dr. Peter Millar's excellent private website dedicated to Doxa dive watches (the company makes other watches, too). Pete's website was born of his personal love and nostalgia for the orange-dialed dive watch worn by novelist Clive Cussler's creation, Dirk Pitt. Either way, I was quite impressed with the Orange Monster. I also have its twin sister, the Seiko Black Monster, but don't wear it for reasons that I will give in a later, separate post.
Bottom line is that I was in love with the Orange Monster. Of course, the urge to wear a nice Swiss watch that is easily recognized by people who are not WISs (Watch Idiot Savants) continued to gnaw at me, and last year I finally had the money for an Omega Planet Ocean. I wanted the large 45.5. millimeter edition of the watch:
You would think that the Omega would now be my one & only, and that the Seiko would sleep in the drawer. Nope: I wear both, every day. I love my Orange Monster.
So why did I buy a Doxa 2 weeks ago?
Because I am a WIS.
Despite owning a kick-ass Swiss dive watch, I continued to haunt Pete Millar's website, and the Doxa forum at WatchUSeek.
So, the Doxa arrived via Fedex, and when I opened the box, I was struck by how tiny the watch was. It was microscopic. Miniscule. I will probably do a separate Doxa 600T vs Omega Planet Ocean 45.5 mm review, but it will have a lot of overlap with this review's comparison of the Doxa vs the Seiko.
First, an explanation: the Doxa line of dive watches vary quite a bit in size. This review compares the smallest Doxa vs the largest Omega only because that's what I own. The name i.e. number of each Doxa does not necessarily denote its size: the names denote their depth ratings: the Doxa 600T is water-resistant to 600 meters, as is the Omega Planet Ocean 45.5 mm. The 600T is the same size as the 42mm version of my Planet Ocean. The Doxa 750T is resistant to 750 meters, but that has nothing to do with the fact that they made the 750T with a much larger case, and dial. They did that because Doxa's rabid fan base a.k.a. loyal customers (the Doxaholics) demanded a bigger watch, in keeping with the modern trend towards large-sized watches.
When I saw the 600T Pro for sale on WatchUSeek's sales corner, I assumed that the watch would be a normal-sized watch, and had no idea that my brain had become accustomed to over-sized watches. The 600T is not actually small: it is normal. Watches today have gotten so big that normal watches look small, in comparison. Here is my 600T next to Skarret Smith's Rolex GMT Master II:
So, how does the Doxa fare in comparison to the Seiko Orange Monster? After all, that is the title of this posting.
LUMINESCENCE
Surprisingly, the Doxa 600T loses in this department in more than one way. Readers of Pete Millar's review of the 600T on his website already know this, but I want to point out several specifics:
1) The lume on the Doxa 600T wears out much faster i.e. does not last all night long.
2) The midget hour hand is a famous Doxa characteristic that is designed to make sure that the diver does not confuse the hour hand with the minute. Unfortunately, this also provides little space for lume.
3) The amount of lume on the hour and minute hands is too little. Proportionately, the Orange Monster has a much higher percentage of the hands' surface area covered in lume. Note in the photo, above, that on the Orange Monster the hands are basically black frames for holding a lot of glow-in-the-dark paint. If you look at the hands on the re-issue Doxa 300T, they did it right i.e. they did what Seiko does with the Orange Monster, where the hands are thin black frames (the black sticks out against the orange dial, making it easier to read the time in daylight) holding a lot of lume.
4) I like the second hand on the Doxas, better. Besides the fact that it's a signature piece of the Doxa design, the large white square of lume on Doxa dive watches' second hands glows more brightly than the hour hand.
THE ZERO MINUTE MARKER ON THE ROTATING BEZEL
Very few watch companies get this right: the lume on the zero minute marker is disproportionately small on both the Doxa and the Seiko. Those Luminox watches that use a tritium marker get it right, as do all of Ball's dive watches. Doxa and Seiko need to increase the size of the luminescent markers on their dive watches' rotating bezel. Bali Hai (unrelated to Ball) is one of the few watch brands that does it right.
THE ORANGE DIAL
I realize that this is sacrilage, but the Seiko has a better shade of orange. In the hand, the orange on the 600T is a deep, serious orange that has gravitas. This darker shade of orange adds to the watch's high-quality look. Unfortunately, the 600T's deep orange also makes it harder to read the watch both in daylight, and at night:
1) In daylight, it is hard to distinguish the black hands from the dark orange dial.
2) At dusk, or at night, the deep orange does not give the dial that odd glow that enhances readability. For a Doxa, that's pretty ironic. If you look at the current range of T Professional divers on Doxa's official website, you will see various shades of orange. On their website, at least, the 1200T looks like it has a better (lighter) shade of orange that might be able to compete with the Seiko for readability.
3) The actual size of the 600T's dial is noticeably smaller than the Orange Monster's
The Seiko's orange--on the other hand--has a faded, cheap, yellowish cast to it. It makes the watch look cheaper, but it is precisely this yellow-orange color that makes it easier to read the time on the Orange Monster in daylight, and at dusk/night-time. Probably under water, too.
THE CRYSTAL
Both the 600T and the Orange Monster have curved crystals, and this is a good thing. Numerous blogs, along with posts on WatchUSeek, hate curved crystals. I think that the curved--as opposed to flat--crystals do a good job of re-directing the kinetic energy of impacts on the watches' fronts, reducing the damage to the crystal, or even the metal parts of the watch. Despite the fact that the Orange Monster's crystal is not made of (synthetic) sapphire [the crystal of the entire Doxa dive watch range is made of scratch-proof sapphire], the curved shape avoids scratches & gashes by letting the offending object slide off the crystal's surface. There are complaints that curved crystals reflect light in a weird way that makes it harder to look at the watch and tell the time, but I could make the same complaint about flat watch crystals.
THE DATE WINDOW
Doxa loses to Seiko on two fronts:
1) Both watches have black numbers on a white field, but the font of the numbers for the date on the 600T consists of very thin letters. The same-sized numbers on the Seiko are just bolder, hence easier to read.
2) Seiko and Citizen dive watches (along with their dress watches, etc.) have the day of the week, along with the date. I have been complaining about the fact that Swiss dive watches do not have these feature. I wish that Doxa, Omega, et al would have the day of the week. Make it an option. At least in the past, you could buy your Rolex Submariner with- or without the date. I only recently realized that in fact, Ball dive watches do have the day of the week.
THE MINUTE MARKERS
This is one of those seemingly small details that can be a deal-breaker: the minute markers on the Seiko Orange Mnster are bolder than the thin, hard-to-see ones on the Doxa 600T. When I glance at my Orange Monster, I instantly know that it's 11:36 a.m. With the Doxa, I have to study the minute hand's location i.e. which thin little black line i.e. minute marker it's actually pointing at, before I decide that it's 11:36 a.m.
ONCE AGAIN, THE JAPANESE HAVE TAKEN A GERMANIC PRODUCT, AND MADE IT BETTER.
WELL, EXCEPT FOR ONE THING:
PRECISION
The Seiko Orange monster is a notoriously inaccurate watch. Mine is 20 seconds slow per day. It also does not have a hacking, hand-wind movement. There are high-quality Seikos that cost a helluva lot more money, that have precise, hand-winding, hacking movements, but none of them are orange monsters. Too bad they don't make a Seiko Marine Master with an orange dial. There are rumors floating around that Seiko has seen the light, and has come out with a new Orange Monster that has a precise, hand-winding, hacking movement. I have seen illustrations of it, and can see that they changed the rectangular shape of the luminescent 5 minute markers into wedges that point at the 5, 10, 20, 25, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55 minute markers.. This may, in fact, improve the ability to discern if it is 11:34 vs 11:35 vs 11:36 a.m.
The Doxa 600t on my wrist is 10 years old, and it is + 3 seconds a day. Now, that's a Swiss watch for you! I have not re-set the time on it since it arrived, 2 week ago.
THE ROTATING BEZEL
This is a deal-breaker for me.
Imagine wearing the Doxa 600T--or any Doxa dive watch while carrying out some physical activity, and asking yourself, "How many minutes have gone by?" If your reading glasses are stapled to your face, you might be able to answer that question. With the Seiko Orange Monster, a blind man can tell how much time has gone by.
There is a reason why the minutes are so small on the Doxa's rotating bezel: they need space for the second set of numbers--in orange--on the outside of the rotating bezel. These numbers are the US Navy's no-decompression limit numbers. This is a very useful function that Doxa invented in the 1960s, but it has its limits: a true no-decompression table is precisely that, a table:
Clearly, the no-decompression limits on the outer ring of Doxa's dive watches are just a guideline. A cheatsheet, if you will. When I used to dive in the 1980s, I had to know how to use the whole chart, and had a plastic copy of it tethered to my buoyancy compensator (dive vest).
HEFT, WEIGHT, SIZE
The Seiko Orange Monster--like the Omega Planet Ocean 45.5 mm--is a heavy watch. It feels substantial, solid, and confident, but a lot of people won't like wearing a cannon ball on their wrist. The 600T, on the other hand, feels noticeably lighter, despite the fact that it is well-constructed, and made out of high-quality stainless steel. The links of the bracelet are solid, yet the 600T feels light as a feather on my wrist. A big plus for the Doxa.
Again, the Doxa 600T looks small, if you have been wearing an Omega Planet Ocean , recently. If you have never owned an over-sized watch, the 600T will appear to be normal-sized.
CONCLUSION
I like the Doxa 600T, but I put it on sale on the WatchUSeek sales corner. I am very interested in using the money from selling the 600T to buy a large Doxa Professional like the 750T, or the 1500T. I like the idea of a large, Swiss-precision, orange-dialed (Professional) Doxa, as long as it is easy-to-read. I would go for the 800Ti--Doxa's only tritium watch, but Doxa chose not to put a glass vial tritium marker on the second hand, because it would have broken format, by not having the large, square lume on the second hand. Instead, they put a second hand that has an empty square. They could have put the tritium marker vial sideways, which would have been 90 degrees off from how everybody else puts their tritium glass vial, and it would have resembled the square Doxa second hand.
