Back in the summer of last year Oceaneva released their flagship titanium dive watch, the Deep Mariner Explorer II Titanium, which is one of the best value propositions in the dive watch arena. Now, they’ve returned to the titanium dive watch concept for their new multi-time zone edition, the Oceaneva Titanium GMT Automatic 1250m Deep Marine Explorer. A seriously tough diver for a seriously accessible price of just £282.
Starting with the case, it measures 42mm in diameter in titanium, which gives the watch its characteristic dark grey colouration. There’s a nice vertical brushed finish across the lugs and case while the bi-directional rotating bezel is polished. The bezel itself is equipped with a ceramic insert that features a 24-hour display split into day/night sections, allowing the watch to display the time in multiple time zones at the same time when used in conjunction with the central GMT hand.
Aesthetically, there are many colourways available featuring many combinations of bezel and dial colour. For the white dial you can choose black/white, white/blue and full white bezels. For the black dial, the bezel options are black/blue, black/green, black/white and full black. Lastly there’s a singular blue dial edition with a blue/white dial. Interestingly, for the Titanium GMT they haven’t released a blue/red edition like they have on the steel GMT, which earned Oceaneva a spot in our Best Affordable Alternatives to the Rolex GMT-Master II.
The dial itself has a mix of circle, rectangle and triangle hour markers, all of which are coated in lume for low light legibility. It’s an iconic layout for dive watches as it makes it easy to read the time regardless of the watch’s orientation, which is extremely useful underwater. Speaking of being underwater, the Titanium GMT Automatic 1250m Deep Marine Explorer has a water resistance rating of, you guessed it, 1250m. Which is impressive enough on its own and even more so when you consider that Oceaneva test their depth ratings in real world scenarios by attaching watches to the outside of ROV submersibles, whereas most brands use lab-based tests.
Powering the watch is the Seiko Calibre NH34 automatic GMT movement with 41-hour power reserve. It’s protected by a solid titanium caseback, bearing an engraving of the watch’s name and the Oceaneva trident logo. It’s the ideal movement for the watch because it combines decent specs with good shock resistance from the Diashock anti-shock system, meaning it’s well adapted to adventurous activities.
And it’s important to remember that the Oceaneva Titanium GMT Automatic 1250m Deep Marine Explorer’s good movement, robust case in a lightweight material and an iconic dive and GMT-style display comes at a ludicrously accessible price. It has a special pre-order price of just £282, available ahead of delivery in March 2024. That value is frankly insane. If we compare it to one of Seiko’s own dive watches like the recent Marinemaster which has a 39.5mm diameter case in steel with 200m water resistance and a 45-hour power reserve for £2,990, the Oceaneva blows it out of the water – even at the non-pre-order price of £1,212.
Price and Specs:
More details at Oceaneva.
