Feature: 10 reasons the Omega Seamaster will never be top dog
The Omega Seamaster is an iconic addition to the dive watch story, steeped in history and engineered for performance. But I don’t think it’s the best. Not quite. It loses by a nose, by the fine hairs on the tip of the nose, but it loses. Why? We’ll have to get pretty down and dirty in the fussy details to find out.
The Tudor Black Bay is nearly half the price
You just can’t argue with that. Pound for pound, all the parts that matter from the Omega are present in the Black Bay, just for way, way cheaper. And if you’re going to buy a not-Rolex, you may as well buy the not-Rolex made by Rolex. Now, I do think Tudor is running on skinnier margins in a sort of still-profitable loss leader situation, and one day perhaps a Black Bay dive watch will align with Omega prices—at least today’s Omega prices—but as of right now, the difference is over 70%. That’s huge, and very hard to justify the extra cost.
The priciest non-precious metal Seamaster costs £9,500
Scoot up to the top end of the Seamaster scale and you’ll find prices that are barely believable. The most expensive Seamaster before you get to the precious metal jobbies is £9,500. I’m sorry, that’s the same price as a Submariner LV. Actually slightly more expensive. That’s £1,800 more than a dateless Submariner. Granted, that particular non-precious metal Seamaster is titanium, but even then, the priciest steel Seamaster is £7,900, which is still £200 more than the dateless Submariner. Takes a lot of nerve to play that game!
The Omega Seamaster’s helium escape valve is a problem
It’s the little silver peanut butter cup at ten o’clock and it’s so irrelevant that most people don’t even know what it does. Of course, most people would never use 99% of a dive watch’s capabilities anyway, but when this particular feature literally sticks out like a sore thumb, you have to weigh up the necessity of it. I don’t know if the automatic valve seen on the Sea-Dwelller is patented and so Omega has to use this manually set version that hangs off the case side instead, but to put into perspective how pointless it is, it will only serve a benefit it you take it saturation diving. Like compression chambers, days underwater, standing on the seabed kind of stuff.
The Omega Seamaster is big at 42mm
It’s not a small watch. It wears well for its size like the Moonwatch does, but for a lot of people, it’s just a bit too big. It’s not that thin either, so shrinking the diameter and making it work wouldn’t be easy. But if they could, there would be a whole lot more people who could actually wear one if they wanted to. Right now, there’s a whole slew of people who might be absolutely gagging to have one, but look like they haven’t grown into big boy watches when they try it on. It’s simple customer optimisation, really. What size do people want? Okay, let’s make it that size, not several millimetres bigger.
There are a lot of details on the Omega Seamaster
That’s not necessarily a criticism at all, because I personally happen to like the details. The waves on the dial, the scalloped bezel edge, the lyre lugs. They all exist to prove that Omega is better at making fancy watches. But it’s a dive watch, so most people don’t care about fancy. In fact, the problem when it comes to fancy is that, actually, you’re adding detail that becomes more divisible by preference. Nobody hates vanilla ice cream, but there a lot of people who wouldn’t touch rum and raisin with a barge spoon. Not everyone likes waves cut into the dial, but the people who do don’t mind it plain. Same with the lugs. Keep it simple!
There’s way too many Omega Seamasters
You’ve probably heard of the paradox of choice, but apparently, Omega hasn’t. Just within the Seamaster Diver 300M collection specifically, there are no less than forty-six different options. Of course you expect a couple of strap choices and some colour variations, but this just feels like a crapshoot. You can have blue with course waves or blue with subtle waves, or blue with sunburst or blue with fumé. Or silver with blue accents. Or blue with yellow gold. Or rose gold. Or a whole load of those with a chronograph as well. Also some of those have a date and some don’t and there’s no real telling why.
There’s way too many different types of Seamaster
Never mind wading through the minefield that is the Seamaster Diver 300M collection, you’ve got to even get to it in amongst all the other Seamaster watches first! Seamaster Aqua Terra, perhaps? Or Seamaster Planet Ocean? What about the Seamaster 300, which is very different to the 300M. What about the Railmaster? Yes, that’s in with the Seamasters. The PloProf, perhaps? The Boutique Edition Master Chronometer or the Olympic Edition? Or the Bullhead Chronograph? The what? Exactly. The opportunity to decide beyond all reasonable doubt that the 300M is even the right model line to go down is made all the more difficult by the torrent of other Seamasters competing for attention.
There’s no taper on the Omega Seamaster bracelet
Dear all that is holy. It is 2023 and the bracelet on the Seamaster still looks like a tape measure. They’ve fixed it on the Speedmaster, and now they need to fix it on the Seamaster. Some people are fine with it, but it’s like all the other details we’ve discussed before: the people who don’t mind the straight bracelet won’t mind the taper, but the people who like the taper won’t buy the straight bracelet. Why would Omega do that?
The bezel is just a let-down
Despite its very tasty looks, the bezel on the Seamaster is just not a pleasing thing to use. Bearing in mind that a dive watch is, for most people, a tactile fidget spinner, getting the click-clunk of the bezel mechanism right is fundamental. Each notch it clicks should encourage a few clicks more, snapping cleanly from tooth to tooth when turned slowly and buzzing like a Chris King hub when given a quick twist of the wrist. The Seamaster just isn’t there. It sounds petty, but that’s what we’re doing here. It’s a matter of details. Also, the bezel is weirdly difficult to grip.
The perfect Seamaster doesn’t exist
There are plenty of components from one Seamaster to the next that could be assembled to make the perfect Seamaster, a bit like how Tudor built the Black Bay 58. It’s like Tudor went through an identikit of watch designs with a room full of watch people all hooked up like A Clockwork Orange, polygraphs scratching up and down when the room hits a peak. Gold markers, good. Silver scored well too. Let’s make both of those. With the Seamaster, it’s chaos. There’s a stunning dial in the Beijing 2022 but with weird markers and a Yacht-Master bezel. The standard bezel is too white and the Summer Blue one looks like it could be better. The caramel lume of the titanium Bond edition could really soften the standard version. There’s a cool ceramic case but it’s 43.5mm only. It’s all there, but it’s like a scavenger hunt to find it and there’s no way to bring it all together.
The Seamaster really is best friends with perfect. It’s just not quite there yet. In some senses, that’s a good thing. Perfect could be considered boring. To be the best, most popular, you might have to sell your soul to the gods of bland universality. Being second best lets you do things a bit different, have a bit more flair. That’s why people choose it. They don’t want the best, they want the one that speaks to them most. So Omega have a decision to make, really. Do they want the Seamaster to simply be the best of the rest, or can it be its own thing entirely? I sincerely hope it’s the latter.
