The new Seiko 5 sports diver clearly takes heavy inspiration from the SKX while changing a few different design queues.Īpplied hour markers make the Sports diver look a little more polished than the SKX in all its tool-watch glory.
It’s simplistic and tooly with no extra frills that don’t need to be there. The SKX is a design that has been around for years. I like what the Seiko 5 line represents and have grown to love its logo, as I’m sure I will grow to love this one also. I know the logo will be off putting to some. It appears to be a sideways S, or a 5, if you squint your eyes hard enough.īasically it’s a combination of the 5 from Seiko 5 and the S from ‘Sports’, thus combining the Seiko 5 and Seiko Sports lines. On the Sports diver we see the logo has been revamped. The lack of a screw-down crown on the Sports diver could potentially be one of the reasons we see the water resistance has dropped. It also tends to be a little more resilient, helping to prevent the crown from accidentally getting pushed out in the case of an incident or hard drop. This helps prevent water from getting inside. Screw Down CrownĪnother thing the Sports diver is losing is the screw-down crown that the SKX currently has.Ī screw-down crown, well, you guessed it, screws the crown of the watch down to the case. The winner here is the SKX here, no questions asked.
How regularly do most of us go diving, anyway?īut the ISO certification on the SKX gives a sense of security to the owners of the watch, and a sense of knowing that you could go diving with it, if you wanted to. Now, that’s not to say the Sports diver won’t be more than fine for most people. Overall, this means the Seiko 5 Sports diver won’t be quite as rugged and tough as the SKX is. It is NOT an ISO certified watch, meaning there are much looser standards for this watch regarding the previously mentioned qualifications like shock resistance, magnetic resistance, etc.
They only have a water resistance of 100m, which is appropriate for swimming but cannot withstand dives at depths deeper than 100m. The Seiko 5 Sports divers, on the other hand, are not.
The ISO certification means it meets a certain set of standards in terms of things like legibility, magnetic resistance, shock resistance and etc.īasically, this certification means it is appropriate to wear as a professional dive watch. The SKX has a 200m water resistance and is ISO certified. One of the biggest downgrades going from the Seiko SKX to the new Seiko divers is the water resistance.
Many even mod their SKX to include a similar NH36 movement that has hacking and handwinding already. Hacking and handwinding are features that people have been wanting in the SKX for years. Hand winding, is the ability to manually power the automatic movement in your watch by winding it up by the crown. Hacking is the feature of stopping the second hand when you pull out the crown to set the time, thus being able to set the time more accurately. It’s basically the same movement as the previously mentioned 7S26, with the addition of hacking and handwinding. The Seiko 5 Sports diver movement, on the other hand, is a slightly upgraded 4r36 movement. It’s not the most accurate but it’s very robust and is known for going sometimes even upward of even 10 or more years without ever needing a service. The SKX features a 7S26 movement that is basically Seiko’s lowest grade of movement. One of the biggest upgrades in the new Seiko 5 Sports divers is the movement. The Final Verdict Upgraded 4r36 Movement.