I’m doing something a little different today: a product review of the amazing San Martin SN0148 watch! No one has paid me to do it, and I’ve not received any free product.
It’s my opinion that the San Martin SN0148 dive watch blends the best of form and function.
Modeled on the iconic Rolex MilSub, Reference 5517, the San Martin SN0148 (or Tuxedo Tool Watch, as I’ve named it), improves on the legendary original. The San Martin’s dial features a silvery sunburst fumé on a piano black enamel dial. This black and silver combination lends a SPECTRE/Bond feel to the watch.
The lume on the dial is stronger than that of the original MilSub, and the entire bezel is illuminated. The lume used is BGW-X1, which is hyped by the advertisers to be stronger than the original BGW lume formula, and, in my experience, this hype happens to be real.
The ceramic bezel is aligned, rotates with satisfying clicks, and has almost no backplay. It’s excellent.
The hands on the watch mimic those of the Seamaster 300 from Omega’s Heritage series. These hands are a great choice on this dive watch because they break from following too closely to the Rolex heritage, and because they look cool.
The Tuxedo Tool Watch’s crystal is domed sapphire; such glass is extremely durable and very difficult to scratch.
The water resistance is 200 meters, and the meters are listed first, which I prefer. The date is at the three o’clock position, which I also prefer because I tend to read my watch like a book, which means my eyes move horizontally naturally (toward the date window) instead of down toward the six o’clock position. The date also has a window, which I like.
The beads of rice bracelet is beautiful and comfortable. I took four links out to make it fit my wrist. The glide-lock style clasp which allows for micro-adjustments gives the user the tolerance of about a single link. So there is no real reason why you shouldn’t be able to get a perfect fit at any time with this watch.
I feel that the beads of rice style bracelet, with its surgical-grade 304 stainless steel links, matches the silvery sunburst and black dial perfectly. The bracelet is also lightweight yet strong. However, if metal bracelets aren’t your thing, I could see this watch working very well with a black NATO strap or a James Bond-style NATO.
The case back is left blank save for a sunburst effect. I like the decision to leave a blank steel case back. Anyone who wishes to make this watch into a gift can have the back engraved.
The movement powering this watch is the Miyota 9015, a movement that is capable of extreme precision and which comes well-regulated from the factory. I have seen these watches losing or gaining fewer than two seconds per day. The movement’s billed as having approximately 42 hours of power reserve.
I have read that some people can hear Miyota movements in their watches. I cannot hear the movement in this model, despite holding the watch near my ear in a quiet place.
This Tuxedo Toolwatch watch has, for me, Goldilocks dimensions. It’s 11.35 mm thick, 37.5mm wide, and its lug-to-lug is 46mm. For a dive watch, it’s very lightweight, and it wears like a Go Anywhere, Do Anything style watch.
The watch comes in different sizes and colors too. You can get the watch in espionage silver and black, seaside turquoise and blue, or an extraordinary and fascinating poison ivy green. The sizes of the diameters of the two models’ sizes are 37.5mm and 40mm.
The dial diameter, it should be noted, actually remains the same on both the 37.5mm watch and the 40mm watch. To keep the dial size the same, San Martin trims the size of the rehaut (among other things). But you don’t lose any dial real estate with the smaller watch, which is very nice.
The watch looks like I’m wearing jewelry on my wrist. The feeling is very luxurious. The dial is just gorgeous, and the anti-reflective coating makes the crystal seem as transparent as clean mountain air.
In my experience of wearing the watch, the direction of the light on the dial’s sunburst effect matters as much as the amount of light. So, holding it under an artificial light, and turning it this way and that, will make the silver fumé seem to grow and shrink a little. But take the watch out for a walk or jog early in the morning or at dusk when the sun sits low in the sky, and you will see the real versatility of the fumé. At times, the silver shrinks to almost total blackness while at other times it seems to become a milky white, or it seems to encompass nearly the whole face with silveriness. Suffice it to say, the sunburst enamel application works well.
I like how the lugs taper to a smooth transition with the bracelet. On the Rolex Submariner Reference 116610, the lugs’ intersection with the bracelet leaves a jagged, chunky, uneven transition. This transition has been described as masculine, and, in part, I agree with that description. However, I prefer the symmetry of the San Martin SN0148’s lugs, those of this Tuxedo Tool Watch.
Finally, (and this last point is a bit of a can of worms) I recognize that, while Chinese industry is appropriately castigated for its never-ending slew of copycat designs and piracy, I think there are other Western brands in Europe and the United States that could also do with some greater originality themselves. There are too, it must be said, only so many different ways to make a watch without treading on others’ corns.
So when comparing this San Martin Tuxedo Tool Watch to a Rolex Submariner, I think there’s a lot to like. You can, in the first place, buy the watch from San Martin without being put on a waiting list. You can keep accurate time with a beautiful piece, and you can, in my opinion, have a better looking watch with great lume for $350 USD than for $10,000 USD, which is the price of a new Rolex Submariner.
I understand that there are pros and cons to every company and every industry, and the slings and arrows may be thrown forever. Accordingly, I tried to keep this review focused on the merits of the San Martin watch, rather than making it a comparison between two watches. Still, I would like to include a few side-by-side photos of the San Martin and a watch that it draws its heritage from.
