Some time ago we reviewed one of the Aquatico models – Bronze Seastar. We also were to receive a steel model with a bracelet – Nautilus II for testing, but the package on the way from china has encountered difficulties and will reach us soon. Recently, Tomek sent me a link to the new Aquatico model – Super Charger 1000 but the watch didn’t impress me much. It wasn’t until I found its photos on the internet and saw that the watch had indices made of tritium tubes that I became more interested in it and I finally decided to buy it. Purchase of a watch that in theory doesn’t meet almost any of my requirements …
The desire of bronze and tritium comes back to me like a boomerang, the desire for a tritium watch always comes to me in the fall, when the night falls faster and lasts longer, while bronze attacks me on average a month after selling the watch, which I already got bored and had an case made of this material. I just have to have a tritium watch and a bronze watch in my collection – it’s best if it’s combined, because  I “can solve two problems at once 😊”.

So, despite doubts, I bought this too big, too thick, too heavy and for me too bizare watch, hoping that Aquatico will positively surprise me again. Did this happen Let’s find out…

Box

The box is of better quality than the one in which the Seastar model came to me, the difference can be seen especially in the interior of the carton – it is lined with fleece and the pillow is stiff and tightly placed in the recess. For me, ok, I don’t need anything more from the box 😉

Case

This is definitely the most difficult to describe element of the watch 😊 The case, viewed from above, has a square shape with rounded corners and a width of 43mm – this parameter was the thing I was afraid of the most … 43mm is not a giant size, but I expected that the corners of the case will stick in my hand left / right movements. Luckily, there is no such place and you don’t feel any discomfort caused by the shape. Each corner has an Allen screw that holds all parts of the case together.

And this is what a 43mm square watch looks like on my 18cm wrist:



Looks very good right?

When we look at the case from the side, we notice that the case of these parts has 3:
1. upper plate which is square;
2. The middle part, which looks like a round ring with 4 screw projections (the ones that bond all 3 parts together);
3. The bottom plate which is square and from which the lugs come out (also very unusual by the way).


The lugs on this watch are one of a kind – they come out from the bottom plate of the case and point up instead of outside. In addition, the lugs don’t touch the top plate, which gives the impression that they could break off with a stronger pull, I hope it is only an illusion 😊
The case is 13.5mm thick and this is exactly what the watch looks like, no more or less, cool as if it was at least 1mm thinner but it fits me anyway. From the side, the case looks like a building with columns and a domed roof.

All case elements (including screws) are made of bronze and vertically brushed. This means that the case will patinate (cover with green / blue / black coating), but in this case there is one more element – dirt and dust … I have no doubt that all these nooks will collect dust and dirt or even what I noticed after a few days of use – stains from hand washing and washing (water with detergent). Fortunately, I know how to deal with this problem and once again I will share my way with you 😊 A soft toothbrush and clean water is a friend of every watch lover with a dirty watch!

The crown has a large diameter and has the Aquatico logo engraved. It doesn’t have a cover and is easy to handle, it is screwed on and has a very long thread, so unscrewing it takes a while, but this is probably the manufacturer’s procedure, used to better seal the case that has a wr at 1000m. Of course, the crown has already started dyeing black due to skin contact. (attention! In this photo, the screw shows traces of my checking whether you can easily unscrew these screws and tighten them yourself – you can, but don’t overdo it with screwing, bronze is a soft metal😊)

It’s the case that is the element that makes the watch very noticeable and attracts glances and sometimes compliments. Personally, I liked this extraordinary case very much and I am very curious how it will look in a month / two, when it’s covered with a thicker layer of patina.

Movement

As in the case of the Bronze Sea Star, Aquatico also used the Seiko NH35 movement here. And that’s good, because in a watch where the thickness of the case doesn’t matter so much, it is not necessary to use better and thus more expensive movements, with the Seiko my copy did an average of + 2s / day over a weekly accuracy test – so in real terms, what would improve the use of another movement?

Dial

The dial is black and has a minimal sunburst effect that can only be seen when we look at it closely. On the outer edge of the dial there are painted minute indices in the form of dashes and Arabic numerals every 5 minutes. Closer to the center of the dial are hourly indices that were made of tritium flat tubes. It is very important that the tubes are flat because they are wider and shine more strongly. At the top of the dial is the white Aquatico inscription, and at the bottom is an orange inscription with the model name, water resistant level and type of tritium used on the dial (T100). The indices on the dial are arranged very carefully, there are not even the slightest bumps, slits etc. Someone not oriented would not even know that there are tritium tubes.

Between the 4 and 5 o’clock index there is a date window in the form of a circular hole in the dial. Unfortunately, the date dial has the form of black letters on a white background which somewhat spoils the symmetry of the dial. After all, I prefer watches with a date, this is one of the few watch complications that are useful to me and I like when it matches the whole dial nicely.

I really like the hands on this watch, the minute and hour hands have the shape of large arrows with a T25 tritium tube in the radius and a green luminescent mass in the arrowhead. These hands are brown, set high, and give the impression of being massive.
The second hand is a straight line in red that has a small tritium stick T25 in ¾ length.

The watch from the top covers the sapphire glass with internal anti-reflection and what immediately caught my eye, the anti-reflection used is colorless, contrary to appearances, an unusual treatment because most of the watches on the market have a blue anti-reflection which can made from a black watch blue one from some angles , and here we have a dial in a pure black color, without blue reflections.

While during the day the dial looks ordinary – just a well-made dail in black, without fireworks, all its additional qualities are revealed after dark. Tritium sticks on the dial and hands shine very brightly, of course not as brightly as freshly exposed luma, but bright enough to read the hour on the watch without any problem or looking at it. And the light level is unchanged all the time. A big plus is that the tubes are wide because it further improves the readability of this watch in the dark. I understood some time ago that when it comes to readability of watches in the dark, nothing compares to tritium, especially when the indices are as large as in this watch. I had watches with a very good luma, I have Eterna Kon-Tiki with a dial entirely covered with luminescent mass, which shines very well and for a very long time, and yet even half of it’s not read as well hours in the dark as with Aquatico, or e.g. Ball I reviewed last winter. Someone will say that there are quartz watches with electric backlight, such as Timex indiglo, only that in such watches you need to press the button so that the dial lights up and the backlight lasts only for a short time. Here we have a very clear and legible backlight at all times, you just have to look at the watch, nothing more.

This was what I expected from this dial and it was 100% fulfilled. During the first days of using the watch, when I got up at night and saw Aquatico lying on the cabinet, I was very impressed how much the watch shines when it’s completely dark and the eyes are weaned from the light, no watch from those I had before, also tritium Ball didn’t shine that much.

Bezel

Bezel is unfortunately the weakest element of this watch. When buying Aquatico we have the choice of a bezel with an insert made of polished ceramics or brushed bronze. Although I was tempted by a ceramic bezel I decided to buy a version with a bronze insert, just out of curiosity to see how qualitatively this version will look … Aquatico with a ceramic insert I have already seen. And it’s not bad, on the second day of wearing the watch, I realized that what bothered me when I was looking at the pictures of the watch was not really a bronze bezel but a brown  strap in this set … the watch was just too monotonous and blurred. After changing the strap to black rubber from the set I was relieved – the whole thing began to look much more coherent.

What I don’t like about the bezel, although this is just my personal feeling, is the red triangle at 12 o’clock bezel, I would be much more comfortable if the triangle was black matte. The red paint in this triangle is shiny and it doesn’t suit the whole concept of this raw watch.

The second thing is the fact that the Indices on the insert have a luminescent mass in blue and after exposure they shine nice and bright, but unfortunately very shortly, after about 20 minutes, basically nothing is visible, especially in combination with such well-glowing indices on the dial .

After 5 minutes of exposure

And so after 25 minutes

Looking at the watch from the side, we can see that the bezel is low and rises towards the glass. On the sides of the bezel there are cuts reminiscent of those on coins, and since the bezel protrudes quite a lot from the case, it is easy to grab and twist. The bezel is of course unidirectional and has 120 clicks. When looking at the profile, you can also see that there is a red plastic element between the bezel and the case, probably a gasket or some distance.

In the end I am glad that I chose the bronze insert because it will be patinated together with the case and when it becomes darker, it will definitely add a lot of charm to the watch.

Case back

It’s good that although I don’t have to write much about it in this case 😊 The case back is made of stainless steel, it is screwed on and has a shallow engraved image of an old type diving helmet. Around the engraving there is basic information about the watch.

Strap

Dealing with another Aquatico model, I had high expectations regarding the strap and luckily I wasn’t disappointed at all. The leather, brown strap on which the watch is delivered could easily cost PLN 200 or even more (after writing the text I checked and on the Aquatico website it costs $ 50) – it is very soft, comfortable and perfectly made. It smells beautiful with leather and the bronze buckle is in no way inferior to its quality.

The black, rubber ladder that we receive separately also stands at a very high level, it’s thick enough (not too thin, not too thick), soft and much more comfortable than the rubber ladder Obris Morgan on which I once wore Phoibos. Importantly, this strap also has an identical bronze buckle on so we have 2 well-made buckles on extremely comfortable straps.

A very big plus for not cutting the budget on such details, the more that the strap of poor quality in the case of a watch with such an unusual shape could greatly reduce the comfort of wearing it.
Absolutely without exaggeration I can say that I cann’t imagine wearing this watch on a different strap and when the current one is worn out I will simply buy the same from Aquatico without looking for cheaper substitutes.

Summary

The Super Charger Diver model can currently be purchased for $ 499 on the manufacturer’s website after entering the SUPER100 code, the code works for the first 100 people who decide to buy in the so-called “early bird” target price will be $ 599 (you can lower it by $ 20 with the KMZIZ code ). This watch qualitatively didn’t knock me down like Bronze Sea Star did, but it definitely makes up for it with the great design and parameters that it offers at its price. I would have no hesitation in buying the exact same model again, because despite a few small (for some maybe big) minuses, wearing it on my hand gives me a lot of joy and as one of the few watches I have dealt with recently, I was moved so much that I decided to write about it review.

The big surprise for me was how comfortable this watch turned out to be despite its size and shape and the fact that at first I thought that the watch would be a copy of Bell & Ross but as it turned out you can see the inspiration, but the references are really minimal.

 

 

4 Comments

  1. I recently bought the supercharger Diver by Aquatico and couldn’t be more pleased. The best buy on the market. Finally made watch and extremely well thought out in both design and materials. Bronze case with Titanium case back. Sapphire crystal and ceramic bezel. High grade superluminova with T100 and T25 tritium gas tubes. Great vintage band and silicone strap with matching bronze buckle. The only other thing I could want in a watch would be a Swiss movement and a thicker watch band with quick-release pins. My feeling is I got a heck of a lot for the price point and I am extremely happy and will highly recommend this watch to everyone. This is a very exciting watch. Thank you Aquatico

    Daniel Diefenbach

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