Rolex Submariner 116610LN - Full Review

what's up YouTube this is guy and today on the just Bluefish channel we're talking to rolex submariner in particular we're talking about the Submariner date reference one one six six one zero Ln as opposed to the no date Submariner yeah today it's long overdue that I'm getting this review video out if you saw in my previous video about this watch I don't know almost two months ago now probably you know it was my first look my initial impressions of this watch I'd had it for a short period of time I just wanted to give you guys a quick look at it well today what we're gonna do is a full feature-length review of this watch now it's probably gonna run a little bit on the long side if I had to guess if you're looking for quick five six minute long review videos this probably is not gonna be the one for you I just don't really do that there's plenty of channels out there that do quick reviews that just rattle off the specifications and tell you they love the watch without really getting too in-depth I prefer to give very in-depth and take very critical looks at the products that I'm reviewing and that's most certainly what we're going to do here today now the Submariner is possibly the most iconic dive watch in the world first introduced in the early 1950s if I'm not mistaken and you know through very minor variations has progressed to the watch that we have here today on the review table sometime in the mid 1960s of course they added the date complication with the iconic Cyclops magnifier which is most similar to the watch that I have while I am a fan of both the date and the know date I chose the date because the added functionality of having that complication on my watch something that I could appreciate I know a lot of you guys out there are gonna say oh the Cyclops doesn't look good I'm not into that I'd much rather have the know date it's more symmetrical it's more clean it's more classic I get that but hopefully you'll enjoy watching my video anyway you know we're gonna take a close look at it and besides the date complication and some very very minor variations to the movement to facilitate that complication it's basically the same watch so yeah I hope you guys enjoy this video alright we're gonna jump over here to the table top view and talk about this watch in detail take some up-close looks at it and yeah go over all the features first of all quickly I want to talk about the basic specifications of the Rolex Submariner one one six six one 0ln I'm sure most of you guys watching this video are already well aware of the basic specs on this watch but for anyone that happens to not know here they are case dimensions the diameter we have a 40 millimeter diameter although with the crown we have a 44 millimeter diameter of course the lug width is 20 millimeters and the case thickness is approximately 13 millimeters now from the top of the case to the bottom of the case from the extremities of lug to lug or the watches wingspan I get a measurement of approximately 48 millimeters and the weight on this watch although mine is minus a few links in the bracelet having been resized already the weight comes in at 150 grams MSRP on this watch is eight thousand five hundred and fifty dollars so the first thing I want to talk about in detail is the case this is of course the six digit reference Rolex Submariner so it's going to have the super case or the maxy case depending on who you ask I've heard it called both and I'm not 100% sure which is the correct naming convention for this case I believe it's super case because the dial is called the maxi dial so for the purposes of this review we'll refer to this as the super case the reason it's called the super cases because it has these more pronounced oversized crown guards here above and below the crown as well as a thicker more substantial shoulder in the lugs they they are quite a bit thicker than the previous generation or the five digit reference Rolex Submariner case lugs this is a change that came about actually I don't know 100% I think sometime in the early 2010's they started rolling out this new thicker super case design at first I wasn't a big fan of it when I started seeing it in pictures and a lot of people aren't a big fan of it they prefer the older classic case design but it has grown on me quite a bit and ultimately that's why I decided to purchase it we'll talk about that in more detail a little later on though the stuff that I want to talk about now is just the basic oh I don't know quality and fit and finish on this case to start with we have polished flanks on both sides of the case and the polishing is you know quite good it's a mirrored polish of course but because of the the shape and the the curves of the case the polishing doesn't look super impressive it's kind of distorted yeah it's a mirrored finish you can see reflections there but as I sort of pan it around you can see my my video camera reflecting there you know it's just got this weird distortion that said we rarely look at the side of the case anyway so who cares but I just did want to say that while it is a very good high quality you know finish or polished job much better than you're gonna find in a lot of the more affordable watches that I've you know in particular that I've reviewed in the past yeah it's not - it's not mind-blowingly awesome what Rolex does do really well though is they're brushing or brushed finishes and if we look at the tops of the lugs here as well as the end links and the bracelet that that brushing is done very well it looks outstanding but next to the polishing it's it's it's like you know the brushing is so nice and the polishing it's just kind of so-so now I will say in regards to the polishing and I think it's in part because it's 904 l stainless steel there's just something about how this steel picks up and borderline attracts scratches it shows them very very readily if you pick up any sort of scuff marks or scratches dings ER Nix they just jump out at you on this watch and that was the case with and a complaint of my previously purchased and then sold Rolex Explorer now the Explorer had a smooth polished bezel so when that got scratched up it was just bang right up in your face all the time and it was kind of a disappointment on this watch you know I mean I got some I got some scuff marks and some scratch marks they had a lot of fingerprints on there too let me go ahead and give that a little wipe with my polish cloth here but yeah once we get the fingerprints out of the way you'll probably see there's some scratches some swirl marks you know just it just picks it up and this watch is only like I said a couple of months old now the the brushed finish is no different and you can see on my clasp it's already picking up a lot of little scratches this isn't a big deal but I have much more inexpensive watches with 316l steel and they don't attract and show and basically get as worn nearly as quickly to you know to my eye you know something to keep in mind if you're the type of person that absolutely wants to have their watch looking you know brand-new minty as long as possible my experience so far with a couple of Rolexes stainless steel Rolexes in particular is that it feels impossible if you're going to wear it to keep it looking really really nice long-term so you know that is what it is the case back on this watch is pretty basic it's a rolex case back no decoration no printing or or I don't know text of any type it does have a little bit of a polished inner bevel and then the flat of the case back is you know just a matching brushed finish it looks fine some people would prefer to have some sort of notation or decoration on their case backs or you know potentially even a an exhibition crystal with see-through window I actually kind of like the simplicity of the case back on Rolex watches or their sports watches anyway so that's not a complaint in my book the last piece of the case to kind of talk about this isn't directly the case but it is the which is of course is attached to the case like I had mentioned we do have these large sort of stout oversized crown guards and then the rowlocks relaxed rolex trip lock crown and you can tell that it is designated as a trip lock crown due to the three little dots that appear below the coronet logo there's sort of a myth on the internet and amongst people that are somewhat uninformed that if your crown when it's screwed down doesn't have the Coronet logo pointing up in this direction that that's a flaw potentially it's a fake that's not the case I've looked at dozens and dozens of different rule X's that the authorized dealer and the orientation of the coronet logo on the crown when it's screwed in every which direction there's there's no rhyme or reason to it that's not some sort of quality control flaw it's not something to be concerned about now the crown itself has a texturing or a knurling on it that is some of the best in the business in my experience it gives a very very clean crisp purchase when you're grabbing onto the crown to unscrew it and the threading the action of unscrewing the crown is fantastic it it is it's again the best in the business from my albion somewhat limited experience unscrewing the crown out to the first position of course gives you hand wind and winding the movement is very very silky smooth pulling the crown out to the second position lets you quick set the date complication and pulling the crown out to the final position will allow you to stop the movement from running and set your handset which will probably take a closer look at that later the next thing I want to look at and talk about is the crystal and the bezel since they're both kind of on the same area we'll cover them both the crystal this is another complaint of mine about Rolex watches there's no anti-reflective coating at all at a minimum we'd like to see at least in my opinion an anti-reflective coating on the underside of the crystal to make the watch more legible ultimately as you can see you know I'm getting all kinds of elective I don't know problems I guess for lack of a better term as I panned the watch around in my studio it is very very reflective and when you catch it in the wrong light it sort of makes everything look just a little bit I don't know hazy is the way that I would describe it I believe there is a are coating underneath the date complication magnifier though I've read that that is the case anyway I don't know that to be a hundred percent true but that is something that I have read and just by my eye here if we're looking at it objectively it does seem that there's less reflection less of that sort of haziness if you're looking through the magnifier as opposed to you know the rest of the dial or the crystal that said it is a sapphire crystal so it should be virtually scratch proof all those sapphire crystals are known to to shatter relatively easily I've never shattered one myself but I guess that's you know a concern I suppose if you know push came to shove would I rather a crystal that were more scratch resistant or a crystal that were more shadow resistant I would of course take the scratch resistance because that's a real problem that you're going to encounter much more often than shattering a crystal in my opinion anyway other than the crystal though I also want to talk about again the bezel the bezel on this is what Rolex calls their ceramic Cera chrome bezel insert now you know the bezel is a couple of pieces there's the metal outer ring which is of course a bi-directional rotating bezel 120 clicks of course and the action of spinning the bezel or setting your elapsed time indicator is fantastic of course how this works is you would rotate the triangle around to where your current minute hand is at and as time passes wherever the minute hand is pointing towards the graduated markers on the bezel gives you a pretty good estimate as to how much time has elapsed so when the minute hand were to be pointing over here at approximately 6 32 or 33 we know that roughly 10 minutes past but yeah the overall action of setting the the bezel it's fantastic it's the absolute best bezel that I have ever used there is one minor complaint that I have about the bezel and I guess this is maybe the bezel or the insert I'm not sure in my opinion to my eye if I'm looking at the watch dead-on the triangular 12 o'clock or zero marker does not align perfectly with my dial of the hash mark for the 12 o'clock pip or or or what's the word I'm looking for here indicator I guess it looks like it's just off a hair to me now I started doing a little research on whether or not this is some sort of known issue or if it was a very very uncommon flaw that happened to be you know something that I just got unlucky with apparently when they switched over to these ceramic bezels this has become a more and more increasingly common problem with I guess not only submariners but potentially also GMT master twos the way that they assemble these is not to pop the insert in when the bezel is on the watch I don't know the process precisely but the moral of the story is is that it gets assembled off the watch and then placed on the watch and for whatever reason it makes it extremely difficult to perfectly align it so it is not an apparently not uncommon to get a slightly misaligned bezel I've seen pictures of other people's online that is significantly worse than what what I have online and all is come in really close here and see if it's more apparent as I get really in there you can see it's just a maybe just a hair to the right it's it's very very close but when it's on my wrist and I look down at it I can kind of notice that it's it depends on which angle I'm holding the watch at to obviously as you can see it just it always looks like it's a little bit off to the right to me slightly not you know not even like a half a click or anything a hair you know a millimeter maybe even a fraction it's not something that I'm willing to send the watch into Rolex and asking them to fix it although I'm assuming they would if you were you know so inclined I don't think it's worth the hassle but if it were significantly misaligned like some of the ones that I've seen pictures of I would you know potentially consider it now the material of the insert this sarah chrome ceramic is also much like sapphire virtually scratch proof or scratch resistant the problem that I have with it and other than the fact that it picks up you know fingerprints like crazy which is probably a parent as I'm holding the watch here so I'll wipe that away for you guys it's it's really really glossy so as again we have this reflective crystal we also have this very reflective bezel insert you can see over on this side here my studio lights reflecting and it like crazy what it does is when it's just on the wrist and you glance down at your watch really quick depending on the surroundings that are being reflected into the crystal it's not gonna look really really inky dark black and I would prefer it to always look just stark black and it really doesn't you know if you're in a room that has light-colored walls much like the room that I'm in right now at different angles it kind of looks I don't know almost charcoal II or gray because it's reflecting a light colored surface in in its you know and its finish yeah I I mean it's not a big deal number one I like that it won't get scratched up also its resistant to UV rays so it's not gonna fade over time that's also great as well but the fact that I you know in my opinion anyway not fact I suppose it's not as aesthetically pleasing to look at as the older aluminum bezels because they were had more of a matte less reflective finish that's a little bit of a negative now the markers are the graduations on the bezel are etched in and then platinum filled they look fantastic you know as you run your finger over them you can feel them you can feel that they are again edged in I don't know if that's the right word that I'm looking for but you know it's recessed maybe I can get in really close and give you is a better example of you sort of see the shadowing of the inset of of those graduated marks on the bezel it does look really really very good but just that glassy almost it almost looks wet all the time a ceramic material it's not my favorite so there's gonna be a lot of things that I'm going to talk about on this watch and I'm gonna say like this kind of bothers me that kind of bothers me these are all really minor things it's not like at the end of this video there's gonna be a list of ten things that bother me and oh by the way I don't want this watch anymore none of them are you know make-or-break for me it's just you know little observations that I've made over the course of the last couple of months that I have had this watch so mmm you know that that said mostly the bezel is fantastic the actual action of the bezel setting it rotating it it's outstanding the fact that this material on the insert the Serra chrome is so resilient is is really good but yeah it's not as aesthetically pleasing as I would like it the other aspect of the bezel that's fantastic is the edging I don't know what you would call this the texture on the edge it is very sharp and crisp I guess there's a one way that I would describe it you you get such a good grip on it because it's not smooth it's very you know you get a good bite on your skin as you grab it I really like that in comparison to say my Seiko skx which is a watch that I absolutely love this one is so much more easier to manipulate because of the texturing because of the action of the spring mechanism that's inside of there the whole the whole package it's really outstanding so yeah we're gonna move on now and talk about the dial the handset and the the date complication the dial in the handset on this watch is a first year one of the most important aspects of the overall design for me and what attracts me to to this watch and Rolex watches in general I'm going to go ahead and zoom the camera in a little bit closer so I don't have to hold the watch up so high so that we can really drill in the dial and take a nice close look at it so we have this beautiful glossy inky black dial with 18 karat gold outlined markers and an 18 karat gold Rolex Mercedes handset and then of course a date complication over at the three o'clock position covered by the cyclops two and a half times magnifier i think that it is absolutely classic and beautiful it is very simple but you know it just works and it's apparent that it works really well because so many other companies have copied or homage to this design over the course of the last 50 60 years you know it is really a timeless and classic fantastic design now this dial is a little bit different than previous generation dials in that it has the maxi dial as they call it the maxi dial has larger indexes or or markers for all of the our markers and I believe the handset is beefed up ever so slightly as well I think that proportionally this looks much much better than the older five divot five digit reference rolex submariner z-- it looks more balanced it looks more proportionally correct to me i'm glad that they up sized all of the markers on this dial now a lot of people complain about the date complication and more specifically about that Cyclops magnifier covering the date when you kind of look down at the watch from an angle like this you can't read the date at all because of the magnifier you got to be looking at it pretty much dead on to be able to read your date you know cleanly and accurately yeah that is a little bit of a negative there's there's no doubt about it I'm not gonna try to I'm not gonna try to deny that however there's something interesting that I know noticed when I was looking at this one one six six one zero side-by-side with a no date Submariner or it's the no date is just the sub-mariner this is the sub-mariner date so when you're looking at this watch side-by-side with a no date to me the no date looks a little bit bigger and it's sort of an optical illusion when you're looking at this one because you have this cyclops here and the date it everything feels a little bit closer together a little more compact on the other hand on the no date you just have a marker just like this nine o'clock marker on the three o'clock side and the dial sort of looks a little more spread out and airy if if that's a good way to describe it to me because it's more spread out because it's less cluttered it feels like a bigger watch again I think it's an optical illusion your mileage may vary you may say no you know I I don't see it that's okay you know you know nobody has to agree with me on that but I do feel like when I had those two watches this watch and the other one side by side that because the date was there it made this feel like a little bit of a smaller more compact presentation other than you know other than that yeah III like the date I'm glad to have the date there it's super legible when you're looking dead on I don't mind the Cyclops one bit so so yeah now the handset and and the markers and we'll get in here a little bit closer with with all of the glare on the crystal it doesn't really present well on on camera like I got to catch it in the right light again white 18 karat gold on all of the surroundings of the markers and as well as the handset it's it's excellent presentation I like the Mercedes hands and I like that they beefed it up the handset ever so slightly is compared to the older references now something that is another potential quality control issue I guess you know we were talking about the alignment of the luminous pip to your 12 o'clock marker another thing that I noticed that people complain about and this happened on mine I'm gonna get in real close here if you look at the rolex logo the coronet above the word Rolex the center spire of the little crown should theoretically be aligned perfectly with the point of the 12 o´clock mercury and you can see that mine is misaligned a little bit to the right yeah it's it's another thing that happens as far as quality control goes Rolex isn't perfect apparently despite the fact that they market their product as the Rolex way being kind of perfection now there's little teeny tiny inconsistencies here and there like like the bezel alignment like the printing of the logo on the dial being slightly misaligned another really common misalignment issue is on the rehab or reach out the little coronet up at the 12 o'clock position there you can see on mine it is again misaligned off to the right ever so slightly these are all little things that are gonna bother some people quite a bit to me it's not a big deal I'm and the reason why is because I looked at so many different examples at the dealer before I picked this one that none of them were really perfect or I would have picked a perfect one of course I never saw a single Rolex and I know they're out there obviously I know that this isn't super super common but I didn't see any any Rolexes with a perfectly aligned reach out or we hopped where the the coronet up there at the 12 o'clock position lines up perfectly with the little graduation or hash mark for the 12 o'clock position on the dial they were all off by a hair I didn't look closely at the logo of the Coronet and how it lines up to the point of the twelve o'clock triangle marker I just noticed that on mine after the fact but I also you know didn't really see many that had much better bezel alignment than this one either as a matter of fact and I'll talk about this a little bit and when we're talking about quality control this is my second Submariner I had one for three days that had some pretty significant problems with the movement and I ended up returning that one and getting this one in exchange so so yeah you know when we're talking about Rolex being quote-unquote perfect you know they're not they're not perfect but they are very very good without a doubt the quality of the craftsmanship is outstanding but perfect no no it is not perfect now the final thing that we want to talk about on this watch as far as the major features is going to be the bracelet so I'm gonna go ahead and zoom the camera out a hair and take a look at the bracelet I suppose one other thing I want to actually point out here before we zoom away from the the dial is of course the printing on the six o'clock side Submariner one thousand feet 300 meter superlative chronometer officially certified something interesting that I've noticed the fonts are different from I don't know year to year like you can see on the 300 meter indication on my dial there it's 300 M well I've seen other watches where it's 300 space M so there's a little bit of a space between the 300 in the N and then I've seen watches just like mine that have the 300 and the M there's also been some minor variations in the overall typeset or the font on the dial itself little strange inconsistencies that Rolex changes from year to year and a lot of people try to use those little inconsistencies as indicators that oh this watch is fake this watch is real because you know whatever the 300m isn't spaced the same way you know that's not a good indicator as to authenticity of a Rolex because Rolex themselves does make these little changes from here to here so yeah I'm gonna go ahead and zoom out we're gonna take a look at the bracelet here and then jump back over to the other perspective and we'll discuss a few more things about this watch so the oyster bracelet that comes on all of Rolex is sports watches is somewhat legendary it's considered one of the best in the business and I do agree it is fantastic in most regards it's very very high quality it's very comfortable and overall yeah I mean there's not a lot to complain about it but I do have some complaints anyway number one I don't like how much of a taper the bracelet has so let me kind of see if there's a good way for me to hold and show the taper maybe like this yeah so you can see up at the lug we're at 20 millimeters and then down at the clasp and I think it tapers down to between 15 and 16 millimeters my my calipers doesn't have a digital readout so it's hard to get a perfect measurement but somewhere between 15 and 16 here at where the clasp connects that's a whole lot of taper more than I would prefer going down from 20 to 18 would be fine for me but it's a little bit thinner than I would like aesthetically that said it's not again none of these things are big make-or-break deals for me it's just something that you know I don't prefer now the first thing I want to talk about on the bracelet the end links they are of course Saladin links as you can see there but and you would expect that at a watch at an eight thousand plus dollar price point but the thing that is really impressive about the end links is how incredibly fine they are machined I mean there's nothing like nothing like this that I've ever seen on any other watch a little bit of dust there but they are like almost sculpted and trying to get the camera to focus here good the the end links sit into the lugs a little bit here and then the center horn comes out and that's where the first link attaches it's again just sculpted so beautifully so precisely that's something that actually really impresses me about this watch now I'll show you something else here is just a standard Hamilton dive watch and this is kind of typical the end links are more of a u-shape and then the first link sets into the u and there's always some sort of like lines here on not always I guess but very very regularly or routinely they have like some sort of line here to kind of match up with the with the bracelet and it's always just kind of pressed in or or maybe engraved in lightly it just looks cheap I guess is the way that I would describe it and Rolex the end links on the oyster bracelets and you know that attached to the oyster cases they look anything but cheap they're just exquisitely done now the links themselves they're all again fantastic the brushing which I've touched on looks outstanding the sides of the links are all polished of course and they are held in with a screw system one downside to the screw system on these oyster bracelets is finding the correct screw driver to resize this very difficult because it's not perfectly one point six millimeters and that's the size that everybody would recommend you use I think is one point seven and nobody makes a one point seven millimeter screwdriver and ideally you would have a hollow ground screw driver instead of a tapered of screw driver bit and almost nobody makes hollow ground screw drivers you have to grind them down yourself to get the appropriate fit into those screw heads so so that's an minor annoyance about the oyster bracelet in my opinion so yeah it would be nice if the screw head size was a little bit more standard on these oyster bracelets you know there's workarounds out there I know but I prefer to be able to do it myself as opposed to take it to the jeweler and I don't want to risk you know mucking up the screw heads just to make a simple adjustment to a bracelet but you know it's not impossible like I said there are workarounds out there there are tools that you can get that will work from what I understand I just don't want to risk it so I end up having to take a ride down to the authorized dealer and have them resize it if I ever need to take a link out or add a link which I have done as you can see I've added a half link to the six o'clock side of my bracelet here so yeah it's again slight a slight annoyance but not the end of the world now moving on the the rest of the bracelet of course you know we didn't talk about again the the polishing or I'm sorry brushing I guess technically on the oyster bracelet with the polished side links you know it all looks fantastic you know then that brings us to the clasp so we have what Rolex calls their oyster lock safety clasp with glide lock extension first things first the as is the complaint about the 904 L in general you can see I've already picked up a ton of little scuff marks on the clasp of the bracelet I mean that's probably one of the most common places to get your Rolex scuffed up and marked up on but you know after only two months aware it's it's a lot more than again any other more affordable watches in my collection so something about this steel is just really soft and you know very easy to pick up scuff marks that said the rest of the clasp you know aside from that little aspect it's it is fantastic first of all you have the fold-over safety lash latch which you know has the little Rolex coronet there looks very nice very well-made the lockup of that safety latch is fantastic it just clicks in very very positively it's done you know honestly perfectly from there open up the safety latch and you have this hinged lever on your on your bracelets clasp here you can open that up and then that you know brings out the swing arm and you know obviously opens the bracelet one thing I will note I've seen people complain about this online the the hinged clasp portion here very very good strong spring action but if you look at it there's quite a bit of side-to-side or lateral play in it and it doesn't seem to be a problem I've just seen people online complain about that not a big deal to me but yeah keep in mind if yours does that that apparently is quite normal to have that much lateral play now this the sides of your clasp are also a high-polished to match the edges of all of the links on the bracelet and the swing arm is and can kind of decorate it nicely I mean you got the Rolex name and logo they're super very high polished blades of the swingarm both blades very nicely machined and then the clasp itself is a nice solid machined clasp the thing that most people really like about this clasp and I really like it too is the glide lock extension system everybody's pretty much gonna know how this works but I'll demonstrate it anyway you can flip out the link and then when it's in this position you can slide the extension fore-and-aft up to 20 millimeters in two millimeter increments yeah I'm gonna probably say something that most people don't say about it and it's in it's a mild complaint about this glide lock system well I guess technically there's a couple little mild complaints first of all let me go on record or saying it is excellent it's probably one of the best systems for being able to Reisler resize your bracelet on the fly without a doubt but it's not flawless first of all moving it back and forth it's a little not sticky it's just not super smooth and it has gotten better as it's broken in but when it was brand new sliding it forward and backward it was kind of I don't know herky-jerky you know it's like I'm right here and then it's like kind of resistance and then a big push so yeah there's just steps of resistance in in adjusting or sliding it the next kind of annoying thing about it is let's say I'm in this position right here as you can see it didn't close all the way so I'm let's say I'm in this position and I want to make it a little bit tighter it's a little bit difficult to just slide it forward a single specific amount and close it back up you know sometimes you'll do this and you'll think did I go one step or did I go two steps when you're looking at the underside of the clasp you can see there's these little cavities and if you kind of look at it you can say like okay I'm gonna just move it down one little cavity and try to snap it in but oftentimes you won't move it quite far enough and you'll try to snap it closed and you can only snap it closed when it's in the proper position sometimes that will kind of snap down but like this not all the way and then you have to move it one direction or another to get it to engage completely so it's a little bit victimized you say that a little bit difficult it's not difficult but it's a little bit difficult to try to get a very precise again there you see it didn't snap all the way close I'm a little too far in the center of one of them so I kind of got to slide it well if that's not the position I wanted now I got to try to do it again and slide it forward and find the notch that I want the clasp to go in so yes it's not very precise on clasp that I just have the holes on the side it's a little annoying because you need a tool to depress the spring bar to to move the bracelet in or out but it is very precise at least but you know that's it's a minor thing you might have to play around with it a little bit too to get the sizing exactly perfect and where you want it it might take a few tries to get it to click into the exact perfect position but it works really really well it's very very convenient it's it's very nicely made so take my criticisms criticisms of it with more or less a grain of salt you know it's it's not bad it's just something that most people don't discuss when they talk about this clasp you know it's not it's not flawless it's not like it's without some shortcomings they're just very very minor so yeah overall would I rate this watch the rolex submariner the six digit reference the newest models what I rate it a 10 out of 10 you know I don't know I think that there's a few little things about it that might keep it from being a perfect 10 but it is quite good it's you know downright fantastic but nothing is nothing is without its flaws so you know all of the little things that I've mentioned are again little things but keep things that you know keep it keep it in perspective it's not flawless it's not absolute perfection and even at this price point I guess the moral of the story is that expecting that is potentially unreasonable I guess we're going to jump back over to the other perspective and I'm going to talk about a few other things in closing and we'll wrap up this review video one thing I didn't mention in the tabletop portion of this review is the loom we didn't touch on the loom really what do I think about the chroma light loom on the Submariner well I'll roll in some video of it so you guys can see it and yeah what's my opinion on it my opinion is it's not really very bright surprisingly it's probably dimmer than a Seiko luma bright watch for sure of course say Kosar green and this chroma light is blue but yeah it's not super bright it is pretty long-lasting and it is perfectly legible in total darkness but I was a little surprised by the dimness in general so yeah I did want to mention the Loom in this review video and tell you guys about that it's good it looks nice but yeah a little bit on the dim side so one thing that a lot of people go through when they're buying their first of Mariner and I had this internal debate as well is should I get the date or the no date now they're both awesome for sure I like them both and it was a difficult decision ultimately for me it came down to the functionality I guess the the usefulness of having a date complication I just really enjoy having a date complication on my watches now most people are again gonna say they not most people but most people that don't like this update are gonna say that it's for reasons of aesthetics and style they don't like the look of the Cyclops lens on the crystal you know I get that I think if you look at them side-by-side and I mentioned this earlier to me the no date looks a little bit bigger and it's an optical illusion but the date complication and at cyclops magnifier on the crystal it just makes the dial kind of feel a little more crowded and condensed to me and when i was holding them at the authorised dealer side-by-side i wanted not to have the presentation of an even larger watch i much much more greatly prefer smaller watches and this watch is not a very large watch for a dive watch but it is a big watch for a watch so so yeah I just felt like that was another checkbox in the column for the date to my eyes just kind of presents a little bit smaller and again I don't think that everyone is gonna agree with me on that it's just the way I felt about it do I dislike the date or the no date version of course not I think that it is really nice looking I understand why people are so attracted to the aesthetic of the very clean simple traditional layout you know that's actually traditional as an interesting word is the no date more traditional than the Submariner date I understand that the original submariners did not have a date complication and by that measure you would certainly say that yes the no date is more traditional however I think that the Cyclops magnifier has become so ubiquitous with the word and the brand of Rolex that to me when I think of a Rolex I think of that magnifier in my mind that's more traditional but you know it's in my mind it's it's probably not technically more traditional so yeah I I liked the date complication I don't mind having the magnifier I don't think it's a beautiful addition to the crystal but I don't mind it and you know like I said there's other minor aesthetic things that I think help it as far as how it presents another question that people have when they're purchasing a Submariner is should I get the previous generation 5 digit reference or should I get the current generation 6 digit reference so what we're talking about is the reference number of the watch in this case it's 1 1 6 6 1 0 6 digits 6 digit references why it's referred to that now these watches look a lot different I mean they're at a glance recognizable as submariners whether it's one or the other but because of that super case and because of that maxi dial the newer six digit reference submariners our beefier they're they look larger and a lot of people feel that they don't look very balanced they look just to doubt to squat you know I don't know the right word to describe it when I was originally looking at watches Rolexes in general about a year ago maybe more actually I sort of felt the same way I thought that the previous five digit reference numbered submariners looked better and over time my opinion on that has changed it's done a complete 180 degree swap I now greatly prefer the super super case and the maxi dial particularly the maxi dial I think that the maxi dial looks significantly better than the older dial with the much smaller indices or markers now when I look at the older version with the slimmer case and the more tapered lugs what I see is just vessel and dial and it sort of makes the whole thing very round and very bulbous looking with sort of delicate looking lugs to me now that looks imbalanced and the newer one with the with the super case to me that now looks more balanced I will agree that the way that the bracelet transitions from the case to you know down the bracelet that does look a little off and I sort of already said in the tabletop portion that I think the bracelet has too much taper so you go from these big wide lugs that this narrow tapering very strong tapering bracelet and that does look a little bit off to me but it's not a big enough problem that I would say you know I don't I don't want to have a six-digit Submariner obviously right but yeah just the overall delicate size of the lugs on the old one and the way that the the bezel and the and the dial looks so around and just prominent it makes it look imbalanced to me now so I'm much happier that I got this particular one as opposed to a vintage one or you know previous generation I actually had the opportunity when I was at my authorized dealer to get either they had a pre-owned beautifully reef not refinished you know serviced recently serviced and brushed and polished it looked like new it was fantastic and you know I got to sit them both side by side it was a previous generation Submariner date and the current Submariner date side-by-side when I had them both in my hands and I tried them both on my wrists it was absolutely no question whatsoever I much preferred the newer six digit reference sub so yeah it's something that everybody goes through I think maybe maybe not everybody but a lot of people certainly do some people are just you know set in their ways and they know right off the bat what they want good for them but you know for me and for lots and lots of other people out there it's it's something that you have to decide on yeah I liked the newer technology the kind of technologies they're the right word but the design and the styling more so yeah six digit for me absolutely we did talk about quality control little tiny problems that mine have that I've seen other people discussing online be it the alignment of the readout or the alignment of the logo on the dial little things like that yeah it's kind of annoying that an $8,000 watch is going to have a slightly misaligned bezel from time to time and you know from time to time I don't mean one in a hundred I think it's more common than that even it's it's slightly annoying that we're gonna have those kind of problems in a watch at this price point particularly when Rolex is selling you know quote-unquote perfection right is it inexcusable I guess it depends on who you ask in my mind I don't know kind of if I'm being honest kind of it's inexcusable but you know there's there's not a whole lot you can do about it other than hunt for an act absolutely perfect example and I suppose they're out there I suppose if you're not in a hurry and there's not a shortage on the market you could hunt for an absolutely perfect example I mean I wasn't about to do that I did look at several at the store and then yeah I went with this one well technically not this one I'll explain that next so when we're talking about quality control one thing to touch on is the movement the accuracy of the movement of the health of the movement if you watched my video on well I had two videos I reviewed my time Grapher and then I showed you how to regulate a simple automatic watch we put the watch in question in this case it was a Seiko skx on the time Grapher and went ahead and checked the accuracy and the health of the movement and all of the different positions and so went through that whole process well of course when I brought home my new Submariner I was gonna not regulate it but I was going to at least put it on my time Grapher and have a look at the movement and I'll roll in a picture of what I was getting on the time Grapher with that first watch that I got because this isn't the original watch this is my second Submariner I was getting a I'm gonna call it a pretty big problem with the movement now you could probably debate on whether it's really big or not but if you look at this trace line on my time graph er first of all the amplitude is a bit low at 370 or something in that book 270 I'm sorry or something in that ballpark it should be 300 ideally in the dial up position but if you look at the trace line on the graph you can see that there's the bottom line it's bouncing all over the place that's indicative of some sort of problem with your movement / potentially it could be magnetism but in this case I don't think that was it because I tested it for magnetism I think what was going on was the palette Fork on one side only was you know damaged or potentially dirty I'm not exactly sure but it is clearly not beating uniformly when I discovered that I contacted the authorized dealer and I said look I'm not really happy with this and I'm not willing to send in a watch that I've owned for three days because it was a Friday when I bought it that contacted them contacted them in a month the following Monday I said I'm not willing to spit send in a watch that I've only owned for three days to get serviced and wait potentially a month or two months to get it back so can you do something for me and I have a pretty good relationship with particularly this person at the authorized dealer I believe he was like the director of sales or something he wasn't just a standard salesman but he you know I showed him all of my data from the time Grapher I explained my situation and he said yeah bring the watch in we'll throw it on the time graph or down here and you all swap you out with a brand new one if there's a problem so I did and they did they gave me this one that I currently have now so I'm really fortunate that my authorized dealer was willing to accommodate me being is how this was my second watch that I purchased from them this year and that I'm kind of friends with him now I've been in there you know a dozen or more times he's loaned me his personal watches to do reviews on the YouTube channel including an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak that came from that review that watch came from him not the store it didn't belong to the store it belonged to him and his personal collection so we were pretty friendly I built up a relationship with him and you know again I'm fortunate that Jonathan down there at the authorized dealer was willing to take care of me on this because I was not satisfied with the first watch that I so we had quality control did that leave Rolex with the movement functioning that way was it dropped at some point and maybe sustained some damage during shipping or you know at some other time I can't really say for sure it's certainly possible that it was a quality control issue it's certainly possible that it left Rolex like that besides the fact that the movement was clearly not running correctly it was not keeping time in side of the plus or minus two seconds per day that Rolex advertises no if we talk about that specific part of their advertising that is the precision or the superlative certification that they put all of their watches through my original Rolex explored it also not keep time at plus or minus two seconds per day this new Submariner that I currently have is extraordinarily accurate it is basically dead-on all the time if I wear it and rest it dial up at night it does seem to potentially lose fractions of a second depending on how long I wear it if I rest it longer it catches back up but if I wear it for say I don't know 16 hours a day it only rested for eight hours a day over the course of a week it will probably lose two seconds on the other hand if I rest it for more like if I wear it for twelve and rested for twelve it seems to keep perfect time so as its resting dial up it catches back up to whatever it lost during the course of the day of being on my wrist so I'm extraordinarily happy with the current movement that I have but two out of the three Rolex watches that I have had did not have particularly accurate movements visa V what they advertised I mean there they were accurate for a watch for a mechanical watch or an automatic watch the Rolex explorer ran a little bit fast maybe four seconds per day that first Submariner I you know I'm not exactly sure because I only had it for a few days but it was kind of in that same ballpark four or five seconds fast considering that there was some problems with the movement though I don't even care what his accuracy was but yeah I mean two out of three of the Rolexes that I've had in the last call it year but it's been less than that did not have perfectly functioning movements at least you know visa Viva accuracy and of course just straight up working correctly so is that a quality control issue I mean I don't know there's a very divisive and polarizing argument on different forums when you talk about watch accuracy whether it's Rolex or any other watch some people don't care you know as long as it's not gaining or losing minutes per day it's good enough I'm not in that camp it has to be within the specs that are advertised at a minimum and some watches have pretty broad spec specifications like a Seiko watch running the 7s to 6:00 you know what specifications are minus 20 to plus 40 seconds per day if I had a watch that was running minus 20 I open it up and regulate it myself or find someone to do it for me that's not good enough even though it's technically within specifications from the manufacturer but when we're talking about Rolex and they're advertised accuracy of plus or minus two if it's running plus four and it's a hundred percent outside of its you know advertised range so like I said there's a lot of people online that argue about this so I'm just straight up don't care as long as it's quote-unquote good enough and some people like me and do care quite a bit now when I'm gonna do a video talking about accuracy and precision completely on its own because like I said it's a divisive and hotly debated topic but does here's the one thing that I will mention in this video when Rolex website and marketing says that the movement is accurate from plus or minus two seconds per day does that mean that it's accurate to that level on your wrists a lot of people the ones that's generally are people that say that they don't really care about accuracy anyway will contend that no that is not what they mean they mean that in the lab at the factory on the time Grapher its plus or minus two but when you get at home when you're putting it on the wrists through the course of different wear habits and different temperatures and different environments all bets are off that's what some people say now I'm gonna quote you something that comes from the issue of the Rolex magazine that's all about the it's all about the Submariner and you tell me what you think this means all right so I've got my Rolex magazine here page 150 they say superlative chronometer certification it's one two three four five paragraphs I'm gonna read the third and fourth paragraphs which are the important ones the certification applies to the fully assembled watch after casing the movement guaranteeing superlative performance on the wrist in terms of precision power reserve waterproofness and self-winding the precision of a Rolex superlative chronometer is of the order of minus two plus two seconds per day or more than twice that which is required of an official chronometer the precision is tested by Rolex using an exclusive exclusive methodology that simulates the condition in which the watch is actually worn and is much more responsive to real-life experience so let's set my book down here what does that mean does that mean that you should expect plus or minus two seconds per day on the wrist or not in my mind yes that is exactly what it means I've had people online on forums argue with me that it does not mean that whatsoever I mean I don't know I don't know how to argue against that it's it is what it is but in my mind yes absolutely it should be on the wrist when you're wearing it plus or minus two and the second reason why I believe that is if it's not let's say it was running plus four I can call up Rolex and I got this watch it's under warranty and it's running four seconds fast they'll tell you there sends it in and they'll regulate it no charge as long as it's under warranty I mean you probably have to pay shipping I guess but so if they're willing to quote-unquote fix it and the book says what I interpret as this is our policy on the superlative chronometer certification again I don't know how your argue against it but but yeah it's it's a it's a big topic it's a big debate we'll talk about it in another video I just wanted to touch on that specific aspect of the quote unquote quality control that goes on at Rolex so finally I want to talk about the price and value of the Rolex Submariner and as well discounts buying from authorized dealers and the availability well touch on availability first right now at the end of 2017 November there is not very many steel sports watches from the Rolex brand to go around is my understanding if you go into an authorized dealer there might be some or there might be none depends on where you're at and who the dealer is I guess so availability can be hit or miss now when availability is low in particular what what do they do as far as discounting first of all there's this myth on the internet that I've read that says Rolex requires dealers to not discount they fix the price and if a dealer does give a discount they're breaking the rules and risking losing their license to sell Rolex watches again myth I talked to again my mom a close friend although you know we don't have gears together or anything but the guy that works at the authorized dealer that loaned me is autumn rpj Royal Oak and helped me out when my first the Mariner was not working correctly when I spoke to him about that he said no that's just absolutely not true you know they discourage you from giving huge discounts but you absolutely can give whatever discount you want they you know they buy the watch they own a watch it's up to them what they want to sell it for the dealers so so yeah that's a myth now what kind of disc can you expect I mean I've only bought a couple of Rolexes I don't know for sure what every dealer does but and again availability is gonna play into this a lot if you go into a dealer a month before Christmas when production is low and Rolexes and shipping them a lot of submariners for example can you go ahead and ask for a discount probably not they're probably gonna laugh you right out of the store because they just don't have that many and they can sell them at full price but where do you live what is the slow time of year where I live the slow time of year is you know August September that's out of season so if you go in and August and say I want to buy this watch what can you do for me which is what I did now I did two things I was out of season and it was just after the hurricane hurricane Irma that came through Florida so the dealer had been closed for two or three weeks because they didn't have power they haven't made a sale in several weeks and it's not in season so people aren't there buying launches well I you know I went in and said what can you do for me we talked about price and I got roughly twelve percent that was the discount that I got my very first watch that I bought from them the Explorer which I subsequently sold I got ten percent with having no relationship or history with them so yeah you absolutely can get decent discounts could you do better than that I don't know you know maybe you're a master haggler and you couldn't do better maybe even do fifteen maybe you can do twenty right you know I'm not really sure but buying at an authorized dealer that's been my experience so far now that's discounts that's availability what about value is eight thousand five hundred and fifty dollars good value for this watch probably not that's you know the sad truth of it you can get a two hundred dollar Seiko that is certainly nowhere near the level of quality of this watch and maybe I should do a comparison of a Seiko skx double of seven and the Samaritan that might be for an injury that would make for an interesting video but yeah you can get a $200 watch that's pretty darn good and while this 8500 $50 watch is a whole heck of a lot better it's not I mean what does what does that even work out to be it's uh like is that 40 40 times better I can't do that math in my head right now but yeah it's not 40 or 50 times better that's the moral of the story that said it is an excellent borderline exceptional watch despite the little things that I've nitpicked about it despite some potential quality control problems it's it is outstanding it's fantastic I'm happy that I bought it I look forward to having it for a very long time and yeah I don't expect it to leave my collection I'm you know I'm all-in basically so yeah that's my review on the rolex submariner reference one one six six one zero l in or the black version I hope you guys enjoyed it if you did leave me a thumbs up and go ahead and leave a comment down below as well if you're not subscribed to the channel I'd appreciate it if you do subscribe I put out new content on a weekly basis at a minimum generally more often than that even so yeah stick around check out some future videos and go into my library and look at some older ones as well I appreciate it and we will see you again soon bye

Channel: JustBlueFish Watch Reviews

Views: 259,282

Rating: 4.6400213 out of 5

Keywords: Rolex, Submariner, 116610, 116610LN, Cerachrom, Maxi Dial, Dive Watch, Tool Watch, Super Case, Chronometer, Superlative

Id: OFYiKfDYWBo

Length: 64min 50sec (3890 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Halfdeadpicasso]

It’s a really good video that shows great angles to use for QC on your next sub.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]