Longines Legend Diver Review

[jamesh]

Background
The origins of this watch date back to the 1950’s when deep sea exploration was still a new frontier. A series of manned submersible vessels called bathyscaphes were developed to withstand huge pressures and were therefore capable of carrying people thousands of meters deep.

Longines supplied many of the instruments for one of these vessels – the Trieste, which set a depth record in 1953, carrying two people to a depth of 3,150 meters.

Alongside development of instruments for the Trieste, Longines also developed diving wrist watches to military specification and later for civilian sports divers. Longines recently re-released one of these watches in a modern-day version, called the “Legend Diver”.

Initially the classic design of the watch caught my attention but reading about the history really got me hooked. I have since noticed that Legend Diver, shares similar design characteristics to two other re-released classics: the Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Tribute to Polaris and IWC Vintage Acquatimer.

Packaging
The watch comes in a ridiculously LARGE box! Probably not very environmentally friendly but I must admit quite impressive, and contains a nice book about the Longines Sport legends collection. Quite interesting reading and nice to look at.

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Case
A few specs: stainless steel, 42mm, domed saphire crystal, water resistant to 300m

The case has two crowns – one for winding and setting the watch and the other to access and set the rotating inner bezel. This is fairly unique feature and less common that the usual external bezel. I can also see a functional reason behind it in that it’s not possible to accidentally move the bezel by knocking it.

The case height is 13.5mm which I think is pretty “thin” considering it’s water resistant to 300 metres. It certainly feels comfortable on the wrist and does not sit too high. The reverse of the case is also imprinted with an image of a diver and spear.

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Dial
The dial design is quite unique and special. It has a real classic, “retro” look about it with beige/cream batton hour markers which contrast nicely against the black face. For me legibility is good thanks to the simple face and strong contrast of the markers. In short, it’s simple, elegant and well laid out.

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Strap
The strap is made from some sort of black synthetic material with off-white stitching. It is lined with black felt on the inside to aid comfort. It certainly looks nice and matches the style of the watch. My only real gripe is that even though I have average size wrists, if I use the tightest buckle hole, the watch is still a bit loose and therefore sits a little to the side. On the positive side I do like the buckle which has nice detail in the cross-hatch pattern adorned with the Longines hour glass logo.

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Fit & Finish
It’s a well constructed watch and you can see and feel the quality. I like the small details like the cross-hatch pattern etched into the top of the crowns and buckle.

Movement
Longines L633 automatic movement, based on the ETA 2824-2

Accuracy
I’m not obsessed with accuracy but I know that this is part of any proper assessment of a watch’s quality. From the 6 months or so I’ve had the watch it seems to fall within +/- 5 secs a day which for me is more than accurate enough for a mechanical automatic watch.

In short
A handsome, classic well-designed watch with a great story behind it. A unique function with the rotating inner bezel accessed by a second crown. And not to mention, great value for around $US 2,000.