Doxa

Doxa SUB4000T Watch

Almost a 'cult' watch brand at this point, with a seriously iconic dive watch, Doxa was likely made most famous by adventure story author Clive Cussler regularly including Doxa timepieces in his books. The story has it that Cussler became familiar with Doxa watches while he was working in a dive shop and at the same time working on starting his writing career. He liked Doxa timepieces enough to make them a re-occurring character in his books.

New from Doxa is a variant on its classic dive watch, now with a power reserve indicator complication. The model will be the SUB4000T, and be more or less identified by the inclusion of the power reserve indicator on the dial. The watch is available in both "Professional" and "Sharkhunter" models. The difference is that Professional Doxa watches have an orange face and Sharkhunter ones have a black face.

In steel, the watch will be 47mm wide, have a sapphire crystal, and is of course a serious tool being a very performance oriented (though retro in style) dive watch. The newer Doxa SUB series bracelets are excellent I hear. Inside the watch is a top grade Swiss ETA 2897 automatic movement. The watch is available for pre-order now (which won't last long) for $1,890 plus shipping. A good deal compared to the regular price of $2,390 after the pre-order period is over. The pre-order page for the Doxa SUB4000T Professional is here, and the pre-order page for the Sharkhunter is here.

Via Time2Watch.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: Doxa, power reserve, sub4000t, watch

Doxa Grafic Open Heart Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

For me, Doxa will probably always be "that watch company that makes that one retro dive timepiece with the orange face." They market the hell out of that watch, and even with each "new" model it looks almost exactly the same. Though the brand does make some other watches, and they have a history of some cool stuff. So here is a non orange dive watch from Doxa. New for 2010, this simple watch is known as the Doxa Grafic Open Heart. The details are really simple, but you have to admit it does have an eye catching design.

The watch was apparently inspired by a late 1950s design that they had in their company archives. Think about it, the brand designers must have been so helplessly devoid of new ideas, that they actually had to go back 50 years to see what 'little gems' might have been lost that they can release today. That would be really funny if it were actually the case, and I have a feeling that it is.

In steel, the watch case is 40mm wide by 43mm tall, but the dial is a square. The black face as large asymmetric baton hour markers and an off-centered inner dial ring to give the watch a skewed look - even though the hands are perfectly centered. The retro-mod feel is quite Movado Museum Face watch in flavor. There is that little red accent you basically can always place in a watch to make it look nicer (as the seconds hand). The dial has an open window to the balance wheel of the Swiss ETA 2824-2 automatic movement. I have a feeling that last part was the "contribution" of Doxa's current designers in making this a modern watch - and the window does fit the look well. Aside from black, you can get a brown or silver dial as well (but black is gonna look the best I feel). Watch crystal is sapphire and the case is water resistant to 30 meters. You can't deny that the watch has an appealing face and is not too hard to read - but is it enough to have you shell out the few thousand this watch will likely cost?

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: 2010, doxa, grafic, open heart, OpenHeart, watch

Doxa TC Four & Five Watches

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

Doxa is most known for their diving watches but are slowly releasing alternatives to the watches that put the brand on the map. I think it was in fact Doxa that started the "orange diving watch color trend." Here are two new watches that are more connected to the world of classic cars than diving underwater. These are the Doxa TC Four and Five watches. The Four is the silvered face model with the power reserve indicator on the dial, while the Five is the black dial colored regulator watch.

The design of the dials remind me of classic race car gauges while The simple polished yet streamlined shape of the watch case further reminds me of the "wind tunnel era." Wile the vertically striped texturing on the dial looks a lot like teak wood on a yacht floor, it could be another element to classic cars that I am not considering. Alternatively I could have got it all wrong and the Four and Five collection watches are an homage to something entirely different than cars...say boats for instance.

Both watches are likely in stainless steel and feature modified base ETA movements. The Four has a base automatic ETA 2892 with a power reserve module on it, while the Five has a different base ETA movement and is also an automatic. I believe that each model can be had in both silvered or black dials and come with black or brown leather straps. The watches should be relatively well priced (maybe $2k - $3k) though Doxa watches are often a bit on the higher end (price wise) in comparison to their competition. Look for the Doxa TC Four and Five watches about now.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: doxa, five, four, power reserve, PowerReserve, regulator, tc, watch