Hydroconquest

I did not expect this one. I have never been a Longines person. Nothing against them, they just weren't a brand I thought about. Then the redesigned Hydroconquest turned up and it hooked me — all the colors, but the green especially.

Let me say the obvious part first, because pretending otherwise would be silly: it is clearly working from the shared dive watch language everyone borrows from the Submariner. The green in sunshine is bright, closer to Hulk than to anything subtle. That's all true. And I love the Submariner. I'm not here to knock it.

But this is the first dive watch I have looked at, on Rolex's own aesthetic, and genuinely thought might look better than the standard.

That is a strange sentence to write and I've had a while to talk myself out of it. I've looked at this watch hundreds of times. I've tried it on in person. I've gone through the reviews. I can point at the differences — the hands aren't the same, the bracelet isn't the same — and none of that explains it. I don't know why I like it as much as I do, and I especially don't know why I like it more with a Submariner sitting right there for comparison.

The other thing working in its favor is that at this stage I find it hard to justify big ticket watches. Around two thousand is still real money and I'm not going to pretend it isn't. But it is an enormous amount of watch for what it is, and knowing that makes me like it more rather than less. It also makes it something that could actually happen in the nearer term, which is not true of most of the watches I think about.

I like the black dial too. And what I'd really love is for them to do an all blue version, dial and bezel in the same hue, the Smurf treatment. That doesn't exist and might never. If I were buying today it would be the green.