In-Depth Diving With The Omega Seamaster Professional 300M Replica Watch

I’ll admit, I have long turned up my nose at the "Bond" Seamaster and when choosing a quiver of new watches to take along to the Caribbean this past April to review, I initially left the new Seamaster off the list. But Hodinkee’s Editor-in-Chief, Jack Forster, made a compelling case for testing it, and I reluctantly gave in. I’m glad I did. This is a watch that got a lot of buzz at Baselworld as a showcase for Omega’s technical know-how, and was well-liked by most who saw it. And while it’s by no means a perfect dive watch for diving, it might be the watch best suited for today’s dive watch buyer: handsome, incredibly well made and not pretending to be something it’s not, while remaining capable should the necessity arise.

The Omega Seamaster Professional replica watch traces its roots back to the very first Omega dive watch, the Seamaster 300 of 1957. Throughout the 1960s, you were almost as apt to see Seamasters on the wrists of divers as you were Rolex Submariners, and they were chosen by Britain’s Royal Navy for issue to its divers. The watch had a blend of utility, with its fully hashed bezel and sword hands, with a bit of panache via its twisted "lyre" lugs. I’ve often thought that, had Omega continued a slow evolution of the Seamaster 300 from its 1960s form (the ref. 166.024, for example), it would have been as much of a modern popular icon as the Submariner. But Omega abandoned the classic shape in favor of a slew of angular, bulbous, colorful Seamasters in the 1970s. These ambitious watches were classics in their own right, but lacked the pure through-line of the Sub. By the time the 1990s came along, dive watches had been replaced by wrist computers, and design could be freed from pure functionality. The introduction of the Seamaster Professional perfectly coincided with the reboot of the James Bond franchise with 1995’s Goldeneye, and it became 007’s watch of choice, creating a marketing bonanza for Omega that's still effective today.

The latest version of the "Bond" Seamaster is a showcase for Omega’s technical watchmaking know-how. For all the details on the new watches, you can check out James Stacey’s introductory story from Basel, and Jack’s hands-on impressions, but, in a nutshell, the big news with the new watches (of which there are 14 variants!) is the use of the METAS and Master Chronometer certified calibre 8800, with its immunity to magnetism and superb timekeeping. The addition of this movement to what has been Omega’s most accessible diver makes it a compelling choice with real firepower and a serious bang for buck at $4,400. But that’s not all (read in late night infomercial voice)! If materials are your thing, Omega has endowed the Seamaster Pro with not only a scratchproof ceramic bezel, but also a dial made of  ZrO2 as well, and this is the real visual centerpiece of the watch.

Since the first Bond Seamaster, the wave pattern dial has been a trademark feature, adding texture to the midnight blue and black dials. But while the earlier examples were subtle, with tightly packed, short frequency waves, the waves on the ceramic dial are prominent, widely spaced and deeply cut. The play of light off of the shiny dial with the waves is something to behold. It's particularly beautiful to see with sunlight filtered through water, though it's not overall the most legible for dive use.

The dial

The wave dial is but one polarizing component of what is a fairly polarizing watch. The second "love it or hate it" feature is the skeleton hand set, also a holdover from Seamaster Pros past. The Seamasters of the 1960s were known for their sword hands, a style adopted by the British Royal Navy for its dive watch specification, for their legibility. Making these swords skeletonized diminishes this legibility for the sake of aesthetics. The hands are complicated, with strips and dots of lume to give them one of the most unique and recognizable “lume shot” signatures out there. Some people love the hands, others don’t. Personally, I’d love this watch with proper Ministry of Defence swords, like the cult favorite reference 2254 Seamaster of the early 2000s.

Does a dive watch like the Seamaster Professional 300M really need to be tested underwater? Probably not. A more fitting review would probably be a week on the wrist by an active, well-heeled guy whose SUV shares garage space with a carbon fiber racing bike. Let’s face it, most who buy the Seamaster Pro aren’t buying a dive timer. This isn’t the 1960s anymore. And that’s OK. It’s why a shiny ceramic dial, skeleton hands and scalloped bezel are perfectly fine for a 2018 dive watch. This is a modern interpretation of a dive watch, a nod to elements of history while acknowledging that it doesn’t need to be something it's not. This is a dress diver that’s proud to be one. And I’m fine with that. But Omega calls it a dive watch and therefore someone needs to take it deep.

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