Review: Oris Diver 65 with Arabic numerals

Close your eyes and picture a dive watch. What do you see? Dot and/or baton hour markers, blocky and heavily lumed. A unidirectional timing bezel with an inverted triangle at the zero position, probably with minute hashes for the first 15 minutes. Few other types of watches have an aesthetic that is as defined as the dive watch. You could probably draw one, eyes closed, in the middle of the night.

Some of this is due to functional requirements. For example, the unidirectional bezel is an important safety feature for the rare specimen who actually uses their dive watch for diving (raise your hand if you do!). But the typical dive watch aesthetic is as much a result of deliberate imitation as it is the consequence of necessity.

It's well-known that many modern divers take their visual cues from the Rolex Submariner, arguably the most famous and most imitated watch of all time. First produced in 1953, it helped to inaugurate an entire category of scuba-ready wristwatches -- the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms was also released at roughly the same time; Zodiac came out with the Seawolf in 1954; Omega launched the famed Seamaster 300 in 1957; and Seiko followed in 1965 with the Prospex --; and it set expectations for generations of watchmakers and watch buyers.

This is all well and good, and the consensus aesthetic has an undeniable appeal. There is more in the middle of the road than yellow stripes and dead armadillos. But I am usually drawn to a different kind of diver: One that knows its lineage and purpose but subtly breaks with the aesthetic conventions of the now-dominant Submariner model. Think of the large numerals and California dials on the Radiomir, originally produced by Panerai for the Italian navy on a shoestring government budget. The angular font and thin lines of a Doxa Sub 300, set against an oversized cushion case and sometimes dressed in bright orange or aquamarine blue. Omega's Seamaster 300 Master Co-Axial, reborn from company archives in 2014. The brutalist aesthetic of Sinn's U50, a watch that celebrates right angles and hard edges as much as any I've seen. The playfully colorful dials of Farer's AquaMatic. Or, naturally, Oris' Diver 65.

To me, the Diver 65 (particularly the version with Arabic numerals) exemplifies an effortlessly cool approach to a watch type that is often quite conventional. The dial is clearly the focus here, with hour markers at 12, 3, 6, and 9 that are oversized and set into lumed blocks of negative space, using a font that's just funky enough to be memorable. The date window sits so subtly at 6 o'clock that it is hard to imagine any other layout. The design borrows from one of Oris' 1960s models, yet it does not feel stuck in time. This is a modern watch, rooted in midcentury history rather than recent dive watch custom.

The rest of the watch has a clear utilitarian vibe. Inside, a Sellita SW200 movement keeps good time (around +2 secs/day in my case) and is easy to service. Outside, the case is polished on the sides and brushed on top of the lugs without any special adornments. The bezel is black aluminum insert and has no noticeable backplay. The "Old Radium" superluminova does its job, and so do the pencil-style minute and hour hands. The tropical rubber strap is very well-made. While the Diver 65 strays deliberately from the beaten path, it is not overloaded with quirks and features simply for the sake of idiosyncrasy.

Some watches make themselves known on the wrist for the wrong reasons. They are just a tad too heavy, or too bulky to slide under a sleeve. This is not one of those watches. With a 40mm diameter and 48mm lug-to-lug, it wears very comfortably. It is not a thick watch by any means -- 12.8mm --, but especially so given that the domed sapphire crystal accounts for a good percentage of that height. At just 90 grams on the rubber strap, it is also surprisingly light without feeling flimsy. The Diver 65 is about as unobtrusive as a watch with 100m water resistance can be. I notice it only when glancing down at my wrist, and finding the watch just as fun as on the first day.

The 100m water resistance and 38-hour power reserve may feel slightly dated -- every Vaer dive watch comes with 200m water resistance at a lower price point; and Oris' own Calibre 400 now boasts 120 hours of power --, but this has never bothered me. The watch has held up flawlessly in water. I also wear it for multiple days at a time, and temporarily swapping it for an evening dress watch or another tool watch will not exhaust the power reserve. My only gripe: The minute markers are set so far inwards as to be useless. The only way to set and tell accurate time is to use the hashes on the bezel.

This version of the Diver 65 was released in 2015 and is no longer in production, but it regularly appears on the secondary market in good condition. I bought mine several years ago with little hesitation and zero regrets.