One of the headlines of Watches & Wonders has got to be the launch of Tudor’s new deep-diver, the Pelagos Ultra. A large 43mm titanium dive watch with 1,000m water resistance, putting it in the same lane as the Omega Planet Ocean and Rolex Sea-Dweller. We got hands-on with it at the Tudor showroom at the Palexpo in Geneva last week.
On first seeing the watch, the thing that immediately stands out is the size. It’s a big watch. At a 43mm diameter with a thickness of 14.5mm, it presents quite an intimidating profile on the wrist. That’s too large for me, but I can’t say I’m not tempted thanks to the shorter lugs that means it actually wears quite comfortably. Though thankfully in lightweight titanium (a combination of grade 2 and 5) it at least won’t weigh you down to the bottom of the ocean like a mafia-style hit. Large watches were a bit of a sub-theme for Tudor this year with the Black Bay 68 sized at 43mm as well.
Another aspect that affects the wearability of the watch, for the positive, is the new bracelet. It’s satin brushed and features a new rapid-adjustment clasp that utilises a lumed marker on the outside so that you can quickly determine the current level of extension. It’s a relatively small quality of life improvement but a nice one all the same.
The Pelagos Ultra’s display is based on the standard Pelagos 42mm with classic Snowflake hands and a combination of square, rectangle and triangle hour markers. The lume has a blue emission except for the minute hand, which is green to make it easier to track underwater. On top of which each element has been upscaled to match the new size.
Though speaking of legibility, it feels like a little bit of a misstep to include a date window at 3 o’clock which interrupts the hour markers and isn’t lumed, plus it impacts the symmetry of the display. For such a serious diver, a dateless display like the FXD would have much more appeal.
However, the vast majority of collectors will never wear their watches in the water, let alone at such incredible depths, so a little bit of daily utility such as the date can actually be useful. In that regard, the most important feature for daily utility is the fact that the movement housed inside is a METAs certified Master Chronometer.
It has a 65-hour power reserve and an accuracy within daily tolerances of 0/+5 seconds. Interestingly, the amount of Master Chronometer saturation in Tudor’s collections now make it feel more remarkable when one of their launches doesn’t come with the prestigious certification, which is a fast turn around considering they only introduced it a couple of years ago.
For the price, it’s £5,070. Compared to the £11K Sea-Dweller with its 1,220m water resistance or £6,300 Planet Ocean with 600m water resistance, that means it’s actually pretty incredible value, especially with Master Chronometer certification. So whatever slight niggles you might have with the size or the date display, it’s very easy to move past them.
Price and Specs:
More details at Tudor.
Nice review. With a watch with such visual heft, the question is “Is this a knuckle dragger?”
You say it’s not heavy, but omit the all important grams.