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STEELDIVE

STEELDIVE Turtle Homage Review

Steeldive SD1970 Diver Watch

A Turtle? No, it is just a watch which Seiko published in the past, Turtle is just the nickname of this watch. I have seen many STEELDIVE watches, most of them are diving styles and have similar designs to those Seiko diver’s watches made in the past, you know, these diver’s watches made by Seiko were very popular years ago and now many people are still trying to get them, but they are very rare now in the market, so, the STEELDIVE is a good alternative, with much cheaper prices. I do not know too much about STEELDIVE, but this brand seems to have a high popularity among diver’s watches fans abroad. The STEELDIVE Turtle has three big selling points, strong case, strong superlume and deep water resistance.

Steeldive SD1970 200m
Steeldive SD1970 Black Dial

The case of the watch looks like the shell of a turtle, the case is made with 316L stainless steel, it is measured to be 43.8mm in diameter and 13.5mm in thickness, the case is fully brushed, it weighs about 90.5 grams without the band. The case is almost 44mm in diameter, almost the same size as Rolex’s Sea-Dweller, but the thickness is acceptable even it looks big. The bezel is uni-directional rotating, it uses a black ceramic insert, bezel markers are applied with superlume material, they will emit a strong blue lume light at night. The case back features a STEELDIVE logo that looks very unique, seeing from the case back, the entire case looks like a turtle’s case more obviously.

Steeldive SD1970 Bezel
Steeldive SD1970 Case
Steeldive SD1970 Crown

Black dial has a high readability, each hour marker and hand are wide, so they can be filled with enough lume material, the superlume on the dial looks a little yellowish, which is slightly different from that on the bezel. The lume light on hour markers and hands is also different, it is green. The dial lume can last for a long time as long as it has absorbed enough light during the day. The second hand has an unique design, there is a round red dot close to its tip, the red dot highlights the entire dial design. By the way, the printings “WATER 200m RESIST” are superfluous, “200m” is enough to show the meaning.

Steeldive SD1970 Case Back

The movement inside is a Japanese NH35 automatic movement, which has 24 jewels, 41-hour power reserve and 21,600bph, the movement also features stop seconds mechanism, this is a very important feature. I always trust the quality of Japanese movement, and most Chinese watches in my collection installed with Japanese movements are more stable than those with Chinese movements. I received the watch three weeks ago, it still keeps time accurate, about two minutes faster each week. Besides the black, STEELDIVE also offers green and blue color options for this watch.

Steeldive 1970 Lume
Steeldive Box
Steeldive SD1970

Conclusion:

This is a great homage watch and is the best-selling model on STEELDIVE site. For diver’s watch fans, this is a must-have model in their collection because a diver’s watch with such design means a lot to them. STEELDIVE diver’s watches have two big selling points, stable Japanese movement and strong dial lume, both features can be found on this watch. This STEELDIVE watch is the glory of the old era and never out of date.