The New Seiko PADI SRPB99

The Seiko SRPB99 has just hit the Watch market and not only is the watch cool, but finally it has a cool case.  PADI watches are starting to feel like that Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles".  In the episode these furry creatures keep multiplying and pretty much take over the starship.  Yes, there are now a few different versions of Seiko PADI watches, perhaps even enough so you can wear a different one every day of the week.  Wait no, scratch that, you have there are only 5 in total.  So the PADI's might not have gone the way of the Tribbles just yet.

The SRPB99

Here we have a combination of two very popular watches, the PADI series and the newish Samurai series.  The Samurai came out last year with the extremely limited blue lagoon watch and the PADI about a year before that.  The Samurai proved so popular 3 styles of the watch came out shortly afterwards.  The Seiko PADI Samurai curbs the trend of the PADI collection, the face isn't blue.  The face is a black style with waves on it.  This alone give you a striking difference from the traditional PADI collection.  The watch reminds me more of the traditional old Pepsi-Co watches.

PADI Samurai

The Samurai is a great watch, the design is simple and to the point.  It is elegant for a dive watch.  Often there is a lot of work and detail behind simple design.  Seiko could have opted to make a more traditional looking dive watch and every one would have been happy.  No, the wanted to make something different, something special and we have the Samurai watch.  I'm one of the first people to complain about a watch.  I often see so many misguided design attempts.  Many designs are nice, but are not functional.  The priority for the samurai is its functionality with a design that flows into that.  

The Watch fit

The SRPB99 fits nice like any of the other samurai watches, the cleverly designed large head, but angled horns give you a comfortable feeling when wearing it.  It feels so good and functional, especially while diving.  The bonus is the cool water proof case that comes with the watch.  This is a big step up from the usual Seiko Box.  Finally with a retail price around $500 it is hard to beat.