Hi and welcome to another Watch Geek video!
Today I'll be doing a review of a Luminox Colormark watch.
But first I would like to thank Silvertime watch store for supplying this watch and if
you want to check them out, you can click on the link in the description.
With this watch I would like to start off with the tritium lume as it is the defining
feature of these watches.
To people who have used tritium, there is nothing new I can say, it works as it should
and you can expect up to 10 years of non-fading usage, as tritium has a half-life of 12,3
years, meaning it will lose half it's power in that time.
To those who never experienced tritium lume, you might get dissapointed at first, especially
if you are used to divers watches, as tritium works a little different and is not nearly
as bright as regular lume in the first couple of minutes, meaning that if you walk into
a dark room after being outside on a sunny day, you will have trouble telling time until
your eyes get a little accustomed to darkness, and to show you exactly what I mean I did
my usual lume shot in exactly the same way I do it for every watch I review, and as you
can see, it is a lot weaker than anything I reviewed so far.
However, the initial brightness on regular lume fades away quickly and within 5-10 minutes
tritium will be brighter, and will keep looking brighter and brighter to your eyes as you
spend more time in the dark.
So despite the lume shot I just showed you, it is very visible and bright in the dark.
The reason for that is that regular lume stores light that it has been exposed to, and then
emits it, so when you walk into a dark room from the outside, the regular lume is at its
peak and will be very bright, but will keep fading away as you spend more time away from a
light source, while tritium is a self-sustained light source, meaning it doesn't require charging
as it uses sealed vials that have tritium inside which is a radioactive gas that emits
electrons.
The vials are painted with phosphorus on the inside so when the electrons from tritium
hit the phosphorus, light is emitted.
Because of this it has a constant brightness even if it is permanently in the dark.
This brightness will slowly fade away over the years, like I mentioned in the beginning
until it dies out completely in about 20 to 30 years, so it does have a an expiration
date, after which you should replace the vials completely.
It is a very interesting and cool way of doing watch lume, but for my personal daily activites
where I often have situations where I go from a very bright outside to almost pitch dark
inside, regular lume is better and more practical.
The other prominent feature of this watch is it's marketing and being called the official
Navy Seals and SAS watch.
That part to me personally is complete BS, and I don't buy into it for a second, just
like I don't buy the BS of Navy seals actually wearing JLC watches on missions.
If you google photos of navy seals that aren't a part of marketing campaigns of these brands,
you will see that they mostly wear Suunto watches, Pro-Treks and G-Shocks.
Even better, try to google photos DW-6600 and army and see what comes out.
So, these watches do have a tactical look to them, but they are not actually used for
tactical missions as far as I know, but in today's world every brand tries to connect
with something people might find cool, so I am not really mad at Luminox for doing this,
especially since I know it would not be the reason that would make me buy one.
Moving on to the case, it is made of what Luminox calls PC Carbon, or carbon reinforced
Polycarbonate, which makes it look and feel like plastic.
Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with plastic, especially one as advanced
as this, as it makes the watch very light and the thing I like the most about it is
that even when you scratch it, the scratches will be unnoticeable, unlike a PVD coated
Stainless Steel watch that's going to show the bare metal underneath.
Some people might find the lack of weight weird and might confuse it with lack of quality,
but you shouldn't.
What does disappoint me a little, is that it really does look and feel like regular
plastic and I wish they made it look a little more special.
For example, a friend of mine bought a Valentino Rossi watch from his fan store, and although
It's just a regular Seiko powered quartz Chronograph, the case is made of carbon.
And when you hold that in your hands, even though it shares the same lightness of the
Luminox, it doesn't look or feel like plastic at all.
It actually looks cool and makes you feel like it's something special.
So I wish Luminox did something similar with their cases, just to move away from the
look and feel of regular plastic.
The caseback is held by 4 little screws like on Casio watches, and has engraved water resistance
and crystal information with a big Navy Seals symbol in the middle so you don't forget
it's a Navy Seals watch.
When it comes to the case size, it is 44mm in diameter but wears more like a 40-41mm
because of the thick bezel and relatively short lug to lug of 47,5mm.
It is 13,8mm thick but sits well on the wrist and is very comfortable to wear due to only
56g of weight.
The strap it comes on is a silicone rubber which is very soft and adds to the comfort.
I like the overall design of the strap and the Luminox logo embossed on it.
The buckle is massive and gives a feeling of being indestructible.
The bezel on the other hand doesn't give you that feeling.
It just feels and sound so weird to turn it, that I have a feeling I am braking something
inside every time I use it.
Like they used a plastic click mechanism.
It is a 60 click bezel and features the louminus pip at 12 o'clock.
The pip is another tritium tube that is covered by this small piece of crystal.
Some people have complained about this crystal falling out making the tritium vial exposed,
but apparently that was on early production models, that also had a problem of tritium
vials on the dial falling out.
The crown is big, easy to grip and seems to be made of the same material as the case.
Despite it not being a screwdown crown, the watch comes with 200meters of water resistance.
The crystal is mineral and underneath is the tactical designed dial and hands.
These both look really good and go well with the look of the watch.
The dial markers and hands are bright, legible and fun looking, which makes the dial definitely
my favorite part of the watch.
I especially love how the tritium vials give the hands a 3d look.
The Luminox logo is at 12 o clock and is quite large.
The date is at 3 o'clock and done in white, which means, again, that I would prefer a
No date version to give a more symmetrical look.
At 6 o'clock you first have the SWISS quartz, then the water resistance inscription and
underneath again a SWISS made inscription.
A bit too swiss If you ask me.
It's like it's saying: "Look at me I am swiss, I promise I am" like it's not
sure it is and is trying to make both you and itself believe that it is.
Another thing I don't like is how they state at least 20 armed forces, coast guards and
other cool macho organizations at the beginning of their manuals, like the manual is issued
to these organizations by their request, but there isn't a single information on what
exact movement they are using.
You get the feeling like they are trying to hide something while throwing BS information
in your face as much as possible.
I really don't like that, even though I want to like the watch.
To conclude, despite my love for the design of this watch and the cool factor of the tritium
lume, I would personally not buy one.
It's not so much the lack of the feeling of quality, even though that is another factor
making me not want one, especially the bezel action.
It's the BS marketing and the lack of proper technical information that makes me stay away
from this.
It is advertised as a Tough Swiss made quartz watch, but it just doesn't give me that
feeling.
If I was in the market for a Tough swiss made quartz watch, I would go for the INOX I reviewed
recently.
Now that watch gives you a feeling of toughness.
In the same way the INOX made me change the way I feel about it, from thinking it is all
marketing BS to actually making me like it and believing it can really take whatever
you throw at it, this watch went from me liking it to actually being disappointed by it.
If Luminox becomes more transparent in the future and concentrates more on telling me
how they make their watches instead of listing all the organizations they payed to use their
name for marketing purposes, I might actually get one.
Until then, I don't think so.
I would like to thank you for watching.
I hope you enjoyed, if you did, please like and subscribe by pressing this button right
here, and until the next video, bye!
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