Looking Good and Performing Well Are Two Different Things: The Omega Seamaster 300 “No Time to Die.”

For much of my life, reality was not enough; I always wanted to find a life that was better than what I was being presented with. I wanted a fictional existence, one that fit what I believed life should be and who I could be. Stories helped bridge the gap between what I felt inside and what I was given in the world, and the James Bond stories, both the books and movies, were instrumental in my development. I loved the entire fabric of the James Bond universe and the feelings of sophistication, proficiency, and accomplishment these stories conjured in my mind. Any gear that Bond wore carried a deep meaning and idea of hope, and I thought that through acquiring these things (and doing actual work), I could get closer to changing the limits of my life and embodying the stories I loved to get lost in.

The Omega Seamaster 300 “No Time to Die” watch represented what I thought would be a culmination of this drive for fiction and acquiring Bond gear. In the press releases it appeared to be an excellent piece of kit and the perfect Bond watch. This Omega allows someone to imagine what they would do if they were James Bond. It sparked my imagination when I first saw it, and it was this spark that drove me to find one I could call my own. When I acquired it, it was a watch that pushed me to re-evaluate the difference between what actually makes a great watch and the fantasies I have about what I think makes a great watch; it erased many of the fantasies I have had about a piece of gear changing who I am.

When I first saw the press release for this piece, I felt it looked like a watch designed to be worn in the desert, forests, or mountains without worrying whether or not it would survive. And my experiences proved this to be true, to a certain extent. It looks so good and photographs so well with my MP5, my tan AR, and all my outdoor gear. It works with a suit nearly as well as it works with hiking gear, and it calls to be worn when one is trying to be the best they can be and push themselves to accomplish any mission, just like Bond. 

I was enamored with the watch when I first picked it up and wrote a story about it a few weeks later. I thought I had finally found the one watch I could wear for the rest of my life. I bought a Walther PPK/S to go with it, and I could hear the James Bond theme song playing in my head every time I put the watch on and threw the Walther into its little holster.

As the honeymoon period ended, though, I noticed some problems in its design and performance. The most flagrant being how uncomfortable it was on my wrist, how difficult it was to read the time, and how hard it was to rotate the bezel. Fearing that I was succumbing to some emotional push (perhaps due to some other watches I was reviewing), I placed this watch on the back burner, hoping to revisit it when I had more time to play James Bond.

A few months ago, I decided to try this watch again. On a brilliantly sunny day, I put it on, packed up my gear (Walther included), and headed out on a hiking/shooting trip into my favorite mountains. I had forgotten how good this watch looked and how light it was on my wrist. I didn’t wear it on the supplied NATO, which I have never been able to make comfortable, but on a Watch Steward nylon stretch strap, which is very comfortable. None of the good parts about the watch had changed. It is very handsome; it looks great in the sand and dirt, especially with the tan strap. The earth-tone colors are a natural fit outdoors, and the brushed finish makes it look like the dictionary definition of a tool watch.

The brown aluminum bezel is very well done, and there is a minimal transition for my eye to the brown dial, tan markers, text, and lume plots. The red “Seamaster” text is a nice nod to a vintage era, and I do not mind the MOD arrow on the dial. It is light; it is thin. It isn’t shiny or gaudy or trying too hard to be a Submariner. It is masculine but not over-done. I could see punching some people or getting in a gunfight with this watch on. 

But the issues I noticed when first owning the watch came back soon after arriving at my shooting range. This isn’t a level ground range; it was not designed to be a fixed distance experience. Instead, it is a multi-station setup with shooting positions between three and seven hundred yards, constructed to make the best use of the rugged hills at the base of the mountains. The farther away the shooting position, the longer and more complicated the hike to get to it. To make this more like a James Bond experience, I like to throw in an exercise at each station, something to get my heart rate up and make shooting more realistic. The exercises vary in time from ninety seconds to four minutes in length. Very few activities allow me to learn whether or not a watch is comfortable than subjecting it to a day at this range and then the two-hour hike up the mountains after the shooting is complete.

The first, and most glaring issue on this watch (a dive watch), is that it is nearly impossible to turn the bezel when the watch or my hands are wet. This day was hot, and I was forced to wipe the sweat off my forehead with my bare hands while prepping my gear. After I had everything ready, I tried to rotate the bezel to set my start time and found I could not make it move with my wet fingers. I wiped my hands off and tried again. I still could not get it to move. Only after I completely wiped all the moisture off the watch and my hands was it possible to rotate the bezel. This made timing my exercises with the watch impossible. Instead, I relied on my phone. Why even bring a watch?

There is, to my mind, no excuse for having a dive watch with a bezel that will not rotate easily and accurately when wet (can we even call it a dive watch with this issue?). This is not acceptable. Strike one, Omega.

The second issue came as I moved from one station to the other. I wanted to track my movement time, and without the bezel, I had to see the precise location of the minute and second hand when I set off. The problem was I could not quickly read the time in the blinding sun reflecting off the crystal. I had to stop, turn away from the sun, and then read the watch.

If this legibility issue was a one-off problem due to a certain angle of the sun or some other environmental factor, it would not be a big deal, but it wasn’t. It happened under almost all lighting conditions, at nearly all angles, and at night. While I could sometimes compensate for this during the day by moving my wrist around or facing away from the sun, its atrocious nighttime legibility was impossible to compensate for. Why? Well, there are two reasons that I have found.

First, the hands, while different in shape and color of lume, look very similar when their lume has faded. I found it far more complicated than it should be to tell them apart in the dark once the lume has started to fade. Within thirty minutes of charging the lume with a flashlight, it fades to the point where the color differences on the hands is nearly impossible to register; the illuminated triangle on the end of the minutes hand starts to look a lot like the circle of the hour hand.

The second issue is with the lumed bezel. It is fun to look at and show off to others; in theory, it seems to be an excellent addition to a dive watch because it makes tracking each minute on the bezel easier. In practice, however, it makes reading the time at night even more challenging. Why? Because the lume on the bezel distracts my eye from the lume on the hands, and when the lume has faded a bit, all the surfaces blend together into a thick suet pudding of faded illumination. I tried to cover the bezel with my hand and shine a light on only the dial to charge the hour and minute hand lume, but that did not work. I tried to cover the bezel with my hand, hoping to block the illumination from the bezel completely, but this did not work. I could not read the time at night unless I had just charged the lume with my flashlight. I can’t imagine what this would be like if one was in combat or some other environment where light discipline and time were of the essence. You would be screwed. Strike two, Omega.

Its wearability wasn’t excellent, either. The NATO the watch came with is high quality, yet it is uncomfortable, and I could never get it to fit my wrist. I ended up cutting the strap to make it more like a ZULU strap and punching holes between the sizing holes that were done at the factory. Despite these adjustments, it still was uncomfortable to wear. It would either be too loose or too tight; it would alternate from flopping around on my wrist while I ran to cutting the circulation off to my fingers and causing them to ache.

There were days when I would have to adjust the strap six or more times as my wrist expanded and contracted during a hike. And shooting or doing exercises with it exacerbated these issues. If the NATO was tight enough to stop the watch from flopping around on my wrist, it was too tight to be comfortable when exercising. It stopped my wrist from articulating well when pulling myself up rocks or doing things like bear crawls or lizard walks. I understand some would argue that I should take the watch off for things such as this, but there are many times when one may have to move this way in an environment where they cannot take the watch off. If it doesn’t work in training, it won’t work in real life.

The comfort problems I faced were not helped by the fact that the lugs were too long and that the flat case back was uncomfortable on my wrist. Even with the Watch Steward strap, which is fantastic, the watch was uncomfortable to wear after a few hours due to the lug length and case back. I hated wearing it by the end of the day, even though it was very light, and I couldn’t wait to take it off. Not what I want from a watch. Strike three, Omega.

The last issue I noticed came when I wanted to set the time after I took a few photos of the watch on top of the mountain where my final shooting position was. I had set the watch to the typical 10:10 for the pictures and wanted to return it to the correct time. But my frustration mounted as I tried to get the minute hand to line up with the minute markers on the dial. I could not put the minute hand directly on the minute marker I wanted because when I pushed the crown in and let the watch run, it would not line up with the next minute marker. The minute hand would be halfway between the two markers. Finding the perfect place between two minute markers was a perpetual issue, and the location changed depending on the time.

After five tries to get the minute hand set the way I wanted, I abandoned the entire exercise. I wanted to rip it off my wrist and leave it in the dust. I wanted my IWC. I know this is some OCD stuff, but I like having my minute hand line up with the minute markers at the top of every minute. This was not what I would expect from an $8k watch. Strike four (I know, not a perfect baseball analogy, but you get the point) Omega.

Ultimately, I traded this watch for an IWC Big Pilot (which I then traded for a Rolex Explorer) and do not regret it. This watch is like a guy who only exercises at the gym; it looks good but has little function beyond looking good. I am disappointed with the poor legibility and the useless bezel, the poor wearability, and the improper function of its hands. Come to think of it, I have been disappointed with every Omega I have owned for reasons like these. They are too thick, the lugs are too long, the sapphire case backs are sticky and annoying, the bracelets and straps are uncomfortable, or there is some other missing or poorly designed feature that makes them tough to use or wear.

This watch may work great for someone with different wrists or who wants to wear it as a statement piece first and a timepiece second. But for me, this defeats its purpose as a watch designed to be used by Bond and taken into the field. It is not a watch to be used in the field. It is not a watch to be relied upon to do things like timing a hike, time spent underground, shooting, or doing anything James Bond is supposed to do. It is one of the better-looking watches I have ever seen; it is one of the most disappointing watches I have ever owned. I do not recommend it.

http://www.omegawatches.com