Posted by 
Holiday Diver
Summer was halfway through and I still did not have a holiday Diver . Because my wife brazenly appropriated my Zelos , apart from the fact that I did not have a watch, I also had almost no budget. In addition, I came up with the idea that I want a watch with a green dial and that was a very big problem because there are really few shades of green that I like in watches. If you add to that, I did not want the watch to be big hmmm … well, the choice was practically not at all but after a few days of searching I came across it! Phoibos Wavemaster – a diver with his own design, with an interesting green dial in a nice shade and ideal size (maybe except for thickness) and for that for decent money, shipping from the EU, what more could a man want? Of course I bought it, because what I would write about here if I did not buy it;) The watch on the European Phoibos site costs 200Euro with the shipping already included which in exchange for PLN was 860 PLN.
Microbrand which is known from …. poor quality control.
Phoibos is a Chinese microbrand that previously dealt with the production of quartz watches stylistically similar to … of course, the Rolex Submariner đ For some time, they also produce automatic watches and recently even invented a few of their own designs (I think so because I donât know any watch that new models would copy). The Wavemaster model is available in 3 colors – blue, black and green. They all look very interesting and all non-green versions are available with dates and without dates. Green is available only without a date, I have no idea why and I deeply regret it because I am very used to this complication and I could not wear a watch without a date on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, the fact that the company has problems with quality control I read only after buying the watch. All the reviews I read before buying were fairly positive, while on one of the Facebook groups I found a few topics about flaws in these watches in which many people shows their flaws , but as I wrote, I got there only after buying the watch. “It’s nothing” I thought, âI do not have such bad luck that something will be wrong witch my watchâ… nothing more wrong …
A series of painful discoveries
Knowing that I have to pay attention to it, as soon as the watch reached me, I made a small check that everything is fine and by the way how the light fell on the bezel I discovered a small chipping from the inside of the bezel .
Well, that’s nothing, I wrote to Phoibos about my discovery and they offered me a $ 30 return. I accepted the offer because the damage is minimal and I can not see it in everyday use,
The next day I looked through the watch with a magnifying glass and discovered another flaw – a jagged index at 3 o’clock.
– I wrote to Phoibos that I would like to change the watch for another one because mine has 2 factory defects.
– They answered that they can exchange my watch for another one but I have to send my watch back to China and the new one will also come from China.
– I wrote again that watch was bought from Europe and I donât understand why I should send it to China, and that generally I donât  like it because I will have to go through customs procedure when the watch reaches Poland from China.
– they replied that its only way to carefully choose for me a watch  without defects and send it to me ( wtf !), and they offered me a refund of $ 20 if I do not want to send the watch back.
Well ok, because this flaw also can not be seen with the naked eye and I wanted to have it all from my head again I agreed to a partial refund of money .
After about 2 weeks of using the watch, when i met Tomek to do a photo session for this review, Tomek noticed that on the inside of the crystal there is some filing (that wasnât there before)that probably came from the movement.
I had enough, I wrote to Phoibos , that I demand the return of all the money and iâll send the watch back to them at their expense.
I got the answer that they can not take the watch back because it was worn and they do not sell used watches and that they understand me and offer me a $ 15 return. After a few more sent emails, it ended with another refund of $ 50.
Since we have already waded through all these painful stations, we can go to the proper review of the watch.
The Box
Phoibos came to me in a small square box made of canvas(?). Its quality and size is just right for a watch from this price range. No exaggeration – just a box, warranty and watch – and that’s okay for me.
The case
The case is decent – and that’s all. It is made of stainless steel, has a width of 42mm and the distance lug to lug is 48,5mm, while the height of 14mm â and all of these size should be ok but still something in its shape makes the watch seem inelegant, this is a typical toolwatch (by the way how do you understand this word?;)) I do not treat this as a minus, I donât like it but someone would like to like the case, besides it fits the bracelet which is in the set very well. The case is polished on the side and brushed from the top , grinds aren’t blowing away , but remember that its a watch for about 850 PLN. And here is a big minus, the case is not polished in between the lugs in any way, I wore a watch on a rubber strap so it was visible and it didnât look nice.
The crown is signed â but what logo? The Phoibos logo is an octopus, such is seen on their site, on the dial and on the case back, generally everywhere. However, the crown sign is simply “P”, probably it would be hard to put an octopus there, but as they say – for those who want, nothing is difficult, I think they went a bit on a easy way. The crown itself is very cool, it fits the watch, it unscrews easily and sets the time well. It is worth noting that the case does not have a crown guard, perhaps it also gives it this raw appearance. The watch has a waterproof level of 300m, I tested it only in the lake and it endured swimming without any problem (I had slight worries if the Chinese watch will survive contact with water despite the declared water resistant )
Movement
The heart of the watch is the Seiko NH38A automatic movement , the movement works with a frequency of 21600 beats per hour, has a stop second and can be handwinded by crown. These Seiko movements are mounted in many watches from the lower price range because they are good and cheap. The watch does an average of -9 seconds per day, which is rather a decent result for this movement.
The Bezel
Bezel is made of stainless steel with a ceramic insert. This ceramic insert is quite specific, for some reason it is easy to get dirty and grabs marks after each touch. It has 120 clicks and turns it counter clockwise as standard. It goes slightly, too lightly – this is the first diver in which I happened to turn the bezel by accident. The way the bezel is cuted matches very well with the whole watch, especially when its on a a bracelet, its high enough – generally everything is ok. It’s nice that it’s black because I did not want the whole green watch. The indices on the bezel are filled with green lume.
The dial
So as usually, what made me to buy this watch. The dial shimmers nicely and together with the wavy pattern that appears on it gives a very interesting effect in the sun. Its shade is perfect, as I wanted – not too dark, not too bright. The applied indices are similar to the ones we already know very well on the dials of many watches, but because they are much smaller they make an impression of completely different and stylistically the watch does not remind anything. The indices are steel frames in the middle filled with a blue lume, with the lume sticking out like a bubble of liquid in these indices, it looks great and if only the frames were more refined the effect could be really good. Under the index of 12 o’clock there is a white Phoibos logo – an octopus, the logo is simply painted, and the dial under it is smoothed (it has no wave pattern)
The minute and hour hands, like the indices, are a steel frame filled with luminescent mass in blue, no work of art – simple tips in the form of longitudinal rectangles that match the shape of the indices. The minute hand is orange and at the end of its counterbalance is a circle filled with a lume .
Lume on the dial is weak, the green lume on the bezel is definitely stronger. Nevertheless, lume on the dial and on the bezel shines quite a long time and can be read almost until morning.
On the edges of the dial is a ring with minute markings and because it is dark green and the markings are black its very hard to read anything from it, in principle, it does not have the utilty value, only visual â as you can see it very well on the pictures, in fact you can see that  you canât see đ
The watch has a sapphire crystal with an inside anti-reflective coating which is a big plus in this budget.
The case back
The Phoibos logo is engraved on a screwed steel caseback  – the shiny octopus is slightly convex and the background is matte. This matte background easily grabs scratches. On the outskirts of the caseback as standard are engraved information about the watch. Here it could be really great, because in my opinion the Phoibos logo is very cool, if it was stamped on the caseback instead of engraved it would look great but now  it’s just a simple flat caseback.
Bracelet
I wore a watch on a green rubber ladder, I do not like engineer bracelets and because I started to like rubber straps – while already buying a watch I ordered the rubber from Obris Morgan in the same time . This stap is of decent quality although it could be softer – I wanted Borealis’ rubber but its green shade was too military, the shade from Obris is just right. The watch on this strap is quite comfortable, although for example to Zelos Mako on the issue of comfort is still far away.
Tomek will write about the bracelet because he is a bracelet specialist and he tested this watch on it J – I will say only that in my opinion the bracelet is good quality and visually matches the watch very well, creating a real toolwatch .
Tomek:
Engineer’s bracelet … At first glance, it seems massive and so itâs its  nature. I would have to comment on connecting the links. Something that should make it easier to adjust the length, namely screw-in pins, has been glued with adhesive, which is a considerable problem with their removal. Let it be testified by the fact that when I tried to remove one of the pins, there was a crack in the part of the head, in which you put a screwdriver. As for the comfort of wearing, I have no objections. The watch is not heavy, and the bracelet, despite the abovementioned drawbacks, is comfortable and fits in well with the case concept, giving the whole a rather massive appearance.
Summary
I have mixed feelings about the watch. I even liked it, it was with me on holiday and for a while I wore it everyday, the flaws are not visible in everyday use and what really bothered me the most is the lack of a date.
How to assess it? Very nice design, good parameters but also a few failures – in the watch in which we pay for details. Other microbrands also had quality problems and they came out of them and I hope that it will be same with Phoibos .
The watch will have to stay with me because there is little chance that someone will want to buy this watch from me even for half price.
I will treat it as a watch for special tasks – that is, for various outbursts of increased risk like going to the mountains, to the forest, to the lake, paintball etc. It suits this watch J
Summary of Tomek:
Phoibos … It made a positive impression on the pictures. It was a bit worse in Real. The quality of the grinds between lugs – in a delicate way – it does not knock down. The filing inside glass also gives food for thought about quality control in this company. Lume, which has been placed on the bezel, shines stronger than that on the hands and dial. Despite this, the watch was comfortable and I often looked at its dial, which really looks interesting.
In my opinion, at this price you can buy more interesting models, where you can see that the quality control did not have a breakfast break
Konrad