In the illustrious and glamorous world of watch reviews there are few things that motivate us at Watch Report like a good deal. Very few people buy products based solely on the price so most of us will choose the product with the best value because it is value that justifies a price. Justification for the price tag is paramount when it comes to watch shopping because watches are one of the few items that inhabit a price range between $5 and $1 million dollars and still share the same basic purpose. So what are we all paying for when we buy watches? Exclusivity? Quality? Or worse, brand? Lets take a look at a new model in the ever-growing market of indie watch manufacturers; the Holotype from Canada based Halios Watches.

Features of the Halios Holotype (Yellow Dial, PVD) dive watch:

• Water resistant to 300m/1000ft.
• 44mm stainless steel case (16mm thick).
• Available in PVD, brushed or bead-blasted finish.
• Sapphire crystal.
• Yellow or black dial.
• Miyota 8215 Automatic movement.
• 45 hour power reserve.
• Unidirectional bezel.
• Solid stainless steel bracelet with screwed links.
• Push button clasp with dive extension and flip lock.
• Limited to 300 units.
• Comes with rubber strap, tools, and travel case.

Today, we bring you a treat. The beast in the flesh, the internet forum darling, the Citizen Ecozilla. The model for review is the BJ8040-01E, a large dive watch that makes you feel like an old-school diver from the minute it is strapped to your wrist. Lets review the stats:

• Dive watch rated to 300 meters (almost 1,000 feet).
• Titanium case.
• 6mm thick mineral crystal.
• Helium release valve.
• Uni-directional dive time bezel.
• 180 day power reserve.
• Citizen Eco-Drive solar quartz movement.
• Movement caliber: B873.
• 46mm wide and 18mm thick.
• MSRP: $595.

Suunto has just announced the release of a new hardcore dive computer, the HelO2. Designed for very serious divers indeed, this computer-interfaced wrist computer has the following features:

• Full mixed-gas capability. Up to eight gases as primary or secondaries.
• Incorporates the new 'Suunto RGBM' decompression algorithm.
• Oxygen contents from 8-100%, helium from 0-92%.
• Of course, it's waterproof to 120m (390ft).
• It's paired with graphical Windows-based diver planner software that allows a complete dive profile to be pre-programmed, or to plan based on data from previous dives.
• From the software, you can export mix data to give to the air vendor.

This goes way beyond nitrox or trimix, and is probably the instrument of choice for commercial divers and mixed-gas divers. I can see it being nice to have for recreation divers who want better planned or longer dives, and also those who use trimix for the additional safety margin that it provides.

Price is not yet available.

By Paul Hubbard

Up for review today is the Citizen JV0010-08E, also known as the 20th Anniversary Aqualand. It's a solar-powered dive watch/computer, sporting both analog hands and a medium-sized digital display. Citizen has made a lot of dive computers and watches over the years, but this is the first Aqualand that uses their Eco-Drive solar technology.

The features include:

• It's a very large watch, 50mm by 17mm thick, weighing in at 135g with the integrated 25mm urethane strap.
• Stainless steel case, with a brushed finish, matching buckle. The bezel is high-polish stainless steel. Screw-back case, no crown.
• Power reserve of 6 months to 2.5 years, depending on power save mode.
• The Citizen quartz U10 module is accurate to within 15 seconds per month.
• Water and pressure sensors (water sensor on the right side, pressure on the left.) that let the watch automatically enter dive mode when depth exceeds about 4m (12ft)
• Analog and digital depth meters, measures up to 100m (330ft). Out of the water, the depth gauge hand indicates power reserve (battery charge).
• Three alarms, each in its own timezone.
• World time in 42 cities plus UTC, 29 time zones.
• Local and world time, second timezone on digital display.
• Logging of up to 20 dives, each recording max depth, minimum temperature, total dive time, starting time and time zone.
• After a dive, the watch automatically measures surface time and shows you the dive time and max depth of your last dive, so as to avoid getting the bends.
• Electroluminescent backlight for the LCD display, and blue-glow lume for the hands, bezel and dial.
• Unusually for a dive watch, the bezel is under the (mineral glass) crystal and fixed. Normally, you rotate the bezel to line up with the minute hand when you submerge; Citizen cleverly inverted this: When it switches to dive mode, the minute hand zips to 00 and starts timing the dive!
• User-settable dive alarms for max depth, bottom time trigger sound as well as a red LED at 12 o'clock.
• Also alarms if ascent rate exceeds 9m/minute (33ft/min)

Over the past few months I have had the pleasure of sitting down with (read: frequently emailing) Mitch Feig, owner and founder of Ocean7 Watch co. You might remember that I had the opportunity to review two Ocean7 watches (the G2 and LM-2) earlier this year, and I walked away impressed with the high quality, reasonable prices, great customer service, and client interaction. After getting to know Mitch a little better, I feel he is yet another reason to consider buying an Ocean7. He is a successful entrepreneur who spends his time answering questions on forums, and ensuring that customer feedback never falls on a deaf ear.

JS: Have you always loved watches?

MF: Yes, I have always loved watches.  I have a degree in computer science, but I studied watch making for two years, in the early 1990’s. I am comfortable working on mechanical watches including chronographs. I have a little experience with quartz movements.

View the Rolex Sea-Dweller photo gallery.

Without a doubt, the Rolex Sea-Dweller is one of my favorite watches of all time. It represents everything I look for in a watch of this sort: simplicity, quality, functionality, and stark beauty.

The Sea-Dweller is one of the less common Rolex sport models. While the Submariner is produced in several combinations of materials and colors, there is only one Sea-Dweller. It is only available in all stainless steel, and only with a black dial and black bezel. Rolex designed the Sea-Dweller purely as a dive tool — not a fashion accessory.

Features of the Rolex Sea-Dweller:

• Guaranteed waterproof to 1,200 meters, or 4,000 feet (that's significantly higher than the 1,000 foot rating of the Submariner).
• 40mm stainless steel case which sits 14.5mm high.
• Ultra-thick synthetic sapphire crystal.
• Unidirectional rotating bezel with a corrosion resistant anodized aluminum insert.
• No date magnifier. I don't mind the "cyclops" on my Explorer II, but I prefer the cleaner look of the Sea-Dweller.
• Helium escape valve. Developed in cooperation with the French industrial diving company, Comex, the helium escape valve allows helium molecules to safely escape without popping the crystal off the watch during decompression (I told you this is a hardcore dive tool).
• Dive extension. The dive extension on the Sea-Dweller is actually nothing to write home about, but it's sufficient. This is one of the biggest improvements of the new Sea-Dweller DEEPSEA.
• Triplock screwdown crown. The Triplock system uses an additional rubber gasket (clearly visible when the crown is unscrewed) beyond the Twinlock system used on many other Rolex sport models like the old GMT Master II and the Explorer II. The crown threads beautifully, and feels incredibly robust and secure.
• Quick-change and quick-set date. Quick-change means that the date changes over to the next day instantly almost exactly at midnight (as opposed to changing gradually over the course of several minutes before and after midnight). Quick-set means that you can set the date while the crown is pulled out to the second position rather than having to change the time in order to change the date.

Some other interesting facts about the Rolex Sea-Dweller, and Rolex in general:

View the Immersion Prowler photo gallery.

Up for review today is a dive computer wristwatch from a lesser known Italian company: The Immersion Prowler. It's a digital data logger, dive computer, and full-featured watch, all in a 200m (660ft) water-resistant housing.

Let's start with the feature list:

• Stainless steel case with rubber side guards.
• Integrated rubber strap with machined buckle and clever strap retainer. It's also long enough to easily go over a 1cm wetsuit.
• Swiss-made depth sensor.
• Dive mode which starts automatically by the pressure sensor on the left side (more on this below). In dive mode, it logs the min and max depths for each dive.
• Always-visible temperature sensor, in Celsius or Fahrenheit.
• Film supertwist nematic LCD. These are the ones with a brilliant green hue from certain angles which makes it very readable.
• Electroluminescent backlight for the entire display.
• Battery life indicator. Around the outside of the dial from about 5:30 to 9:30, there is a 11-bar battery "gas gauge" that shows remaining battery life. In a safety-critical item like a dive computer, this is a great feature.
• In dive mode, the backlight comes on automatically when you tilt your wrist, as do many Casio G-shock watches. Nice touch.
• The dive log records a total of 50 dives, with log date & time, max depth, min depth, and temperature at each recorded data point.
• Sleep mode. You can have the display turn itself off after a configurable interval, to be instantly activated on any button press. Also an excellent idea, especially for a watch that you may only break out a few times a year.
• Fast ascent warning. An alarm warns you that you are surfacing too rapidly and are risking the bends.

There is also a full complement of digital watch features:

View the Ball Engineer Master II Diver photo gallery.

If you're looking to put something a little different on your wrist, you owe it to yourself to consider a Ball.

I came across Ball watches when I was looking for something distinctive and unique; something that combines the tradition of a good automatic movement with modern functionality; something that stands out without being ostentatious. The result was the Ball Engineer Master II Diver you see here.

The best way to appreciate the Engineer Master II Diver is to consider its impressive list of features:

• ETA 2836-2 automatic movement.
• Tritium gas tube illumination (more on this below).
• Inner rotating timing bezel with gas tube illumination (more on this below).
• Beautiful domed sapphire crystal.
• Day and date, both large and readable.
• Shock resistant to 5,000Gs.
• Antimagnetic to 4,800A/m.
• Water resistant to 300 meters, or about 1,000 feet.
• Dual screwdown crowns (one for the movement, one for the inner rotating bezel), as well as a screwdown caseback.
• 42mm brushed stainless steel case, and a unique brushed stainless steel bracelet with a hidden clasp.

As you can see, this is an extremely impressive set of features for a $1,899 Swiss watch (Ball watches were once American made, closely associated with the emergence of the railroad, but the brand was purchased by a Swiss company in the 1990s). Of particular note is the tritium illumination system. The Ball Engineer Master II Diver has no fewer than 53 individual micro gas tubes, making it the most nighttime-readable and functional analog watch I've ever seen. Even the inner rotating bezel and bezel pearl use tritium tubes for diving in dark conditions.

View the Kobold Soarway Diver photo gallery.

I've wanted a Kobold watch for pretty close to three years now. The first Kobold I fell in love with was the Polar Surveyor since it has both a chronograph, and a 24-hour hand. When I went through a military watch phase, I was dying for the Kobold Phantom. And I've always been a huge dive watch fanatic, so the Kobold Soarway Diver SEAL was a big temptation. But when I was recently fortunate enough to get my hands on almost the entire Kobold collection at one of the very few authorized Kobold dealers, the one that seemed to make the most sense for me was the Kobold Soarway Diver (non-SEAL version).

Kobold watches are known for their substantial cases which are usually between 41mm and 44mm wide (without their prominent crowns), and 15mm to 17.75mm tall. That's a pretty big watch for my relatively small arm. The Kobold Soarway Diver uses the very slim ETA 2892 movement, however, which allows the case to be a mere 10.25mm high — in my opinion, the perfect size.

I was also lucky enough to find a very special Soarway Diver. It turns out that James Gandolfini of Sopranos fame is a big Kobold fan, so when the show ended last year, he ordered 400 custom made Kobold Soarway Divers for the cast and crew. A very small number of these watches ended up being sold by crew members who, having little appreciation for fine timepieces, decided they'd rather have the cash than the souvenir. Being a huge Sopranos fan, when I was lucky enough to come across one, I snatched it up immediately.

Breitling's newest watch to come out of Basel this year is the Avenger Seawolf Chronograph. Combining the versatility and reliability of the Avenger line with the water resistance of the Seawolf, Breitling seems to be getting as serious about diving as they are about aviation.

Breitling is touting the new Avenger Seawolf as the worlds only chronograph to be water tight and operational at depths up to 1,000 meters (3300 feet). This is impressive, but not entirely true. The Sinn U1000 also has the ability to remain operational at the same depths as the Breitling, but that just means they are in good company.

Breitling has developed new proprietary technology that makes their calibre 73 SuperQuartz operational at extreme depths. By using magnetically activated pushers, the pushpieces can be activated through the case with no direct contact with the module inside, keeping the watch perfectly sealed. The SuperQuartz movement is also thermo compensated which means it can account for the changes in temperature that make most quartz modules lose or gain time. The result is that the Avenger Seawolf is some ten times more accurate then a standard quartz movement.

In addition to the standard chronograph feature, the Breitling Avenger Seawolf has a "regatta timer" that will measure in ten minute scales for the beginning of a yacht race. The case is brushed stainless steel, and incorporates a helium release valve for extreme saturation diving, and a sapphire crystal.

Being a diehard Breitling fan, I really think they have a winner on their hands as this piece is gorgeous, functional, understated, and impenetrable.

By James Stacey