Episode 223 - Objectively Best Dive Watch Under $1,000

Published on Wed, 01 Feb 2023 22:38:14 -0800

Synopsis

Andrew and Everett, hosts of the podcast 40 in 20, discuss their picks for the best dive watch under $1,000 using an "objective" rating system they developed. They go through numerous contenders, scoring them on metrics like water resistance, size, movement, bracelet, aesthetics, durability, lume, and an "X-factor." After much analysis and debate, their unanimous top pick is the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Pro 300 40mm on a bracelet.

In other segments, Andrew raves about the Netflix series "Chef's Table: BBQ," particularly the first episode on the unique wood-fired restaurant Firedoor in Australia. Everett shares his revelation about using an iPhone SD card reader to easily transfer photos from his camera, simplifying his photography process immensely.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 in 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Everett Everett, how are you? I'm good. I'm super woke right now.
Andrew Just like generally speaking, you've been doing a lot of like pop culture. Indeed. Buzzfeed article, listicle reading. Yeah, no. Binging on Vice News. and just like getting with it.
Everett Yeah. A lot of, a lot of, uh, mad out and yeah. Yeah. Huffington post. No, I'm, uh, I'm well, yeah. It feels like we're in a season, some sort of like repetitive motion doldrum season. Like, I feel like I'm in a rut, like we're about to pop out of this rut.
Andrew I don't know. That's adulthood and parenthood, my friend. Yeah. West turns 18 in like six years?
Everett Yeah, no, not quite eight, eight years.
Andrew Eight years. Okay. So, uh, you are eight years away from popping out of the rut.
Everett Yeah, perhaps. Um, I don't know. I mean, it just work and everything has just felt like it's also could be called being in a groove.
Andrew Don't be negative. You're in a rhythm. It's working. Yeah. Yeah.
Everett Well, it does feel a little negative. Um, but no, I'm fine. I'm good. In fact, there's nothing wrong. Uh, we're drinking Scotch tonight. I, this is certainly not the most expensive Scotch I've ever had, but it is, it is up there in terms of money. This is Royal Salute 21. It's a Chivas Scotch. It's in a ceramic, a blue sort of a cobalt blue ceramic bottle. Um, it's a signature blend and it celebrates the, It celebrates something about the British.
Andrew So they're celebrating the royal salute.
Everett Yeah. Um, I've had a, I've had a finger of this already. Ah, well, why don't you taste it?
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. It can by itself. What's that? It can, it can by itself. It's 21. That's it. Yeah.
Everett That's a thing. Yeah. It's certainly one of the oldest scotches I've ever had. What would you do if I just shot it? Just right down the hatch. Um, yeah, I don't know what I think about it. It is, it's definitely big. It's a big, bold brash. It's not particularly peaty. It's definitely got peat.
Andrew Just really lightly peated.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew That's really smooth though.
Everett Super smooth. I mean, I mean that comes, that comes by way of being aged for over two decades. Um, I like it. It's, it's big, it's big.
Andrew It's only, this is a little hot for being 21. It's kind of surprisingly hot. 80 proof.
Everett Yeah. Doesn't that, isn't that surprising? It is really almost offensively hot. Like wild turkey 101 hot, but only 80 proof, which surprised me. Like where's that heat? Where's that alcohol burn coming from? It's got like a little bit of an ethanol finish. I don't know. It's interesting. I'm kind of into it.
Andrew Um, I wouldn't buy it.
Everett I don't think I would either.
Andrew I'm super happy drinking it though.
Everett Same, same. It was a gift and it was a loving gift and it's interesting and I like trying new things. Uh, I don't think I'd buy it either.
Andrew I don't think I'd buy it. I don't think I'd even buy like a, like a pour of it.
Everett Yeah. It is not, it's not my style of scotch.
Andrew No, it's not quite mine either, but I super like it though. That's the interesting thing. Yeah. I don't know if I have anything to compare it to. Me either. But I've had a lot of scotches and I'm like, I really like this. And I now know that I shouldn't ever buy this bottle.
Everett Yeah. It's big. It's big. Like, I mean, no, no, no, no. We don't talk about scotch on the show. It's big in a way that I would expect, like from a Lafroig or something.
Andrew But minus the peat. But minus the peat.
Everett There is, there is a smokiness to it, but yeah. It's just a really weird, it's good. I enjoy drinking it.
Andrew This drinks like a daily driver.
Everett It does. It actually reminds me a little bit of the special famous grouse. I can't remember what they're not the black grouse, but anyway, uh, but much better. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Andrew, how are you? I'm good. I've had, you know, good. I am. Yeah. I had my like normal weekend and today I had, uh, a weird showdown with my seven-year-old over laundry, because we had a laundry basket filled with socks. And I was like, I've been doing laundry for hours. You're going to assist in this. And he had like, he had a moment and just sat in a pile of socks and said, I hate my life. And I was like, go and learn today. So that just kind of set the pace and tone for the rest of my night. So I'm a little off on the rest of my night. Cause he, he did learn, um, not in that moment, but we'll learn over the next week or so, um, what it means to like actually have to do things. So yeah, it just, it created a hard tone in the house for the rest of the night.
Everett There's there's that, you know, he's in that age where the, the chores that are pretty minuscule or feeling like, really overwhelming, especially, you know, socks, socks are one of those things, man.
Andrew You start with the socks.
Everett It's like, this is never going to end. And it will.
Andrew Yeah. But you know, one of the things I told him, I was like, look around at the mountains of laundry that surround you. You didn't have to do any of that. You're going to be okay. You have this small mountain in front of you. And in fairness, folding socks sucks. Which is also why I insist that you wear paired socks. Because it makes it easier because we can be sure.
Everett We'll get through this together.
Andrew That sock's friend is in the laundry with it.
Everett We'll get through this together.
Andrew Meanwhile, he's wearing mismatched, like not even the same, like not just mismatched socks, but different lengths. Like one's up to the knee. One's an ankle sock and one's mid-calf. It's like, come on, man. I'm just a little bit, I'm a little bit, you know, just a little off.
Everett Well, if it makes you feel better, you look really good.
Andrew I do. I have a unexpected long weekend beard.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. And Andrew, we're going to talk about watches today, if that's all right.
Andrew We did. We got there at, uh, oh, it's seven minutes.
Everett Yeah. Timestamped, uh, fail, uh, in any event, we're going to talk about watches. I insist at this point, I insist because we, we developed an episode and I say this more frequently, I feel like in the last handful of episodes, then, then in the many, many episodes before that, but this is an old school episode. Yeah. We've gone back to our roots, and we were challenged by a couple people, and we've decided to kind of revisit some of these. Andrew, you've been the driving force behind these show topics, and I appreciate you for it, because these are fun. I remember why we did this, and I remember how much fun it was. We're going to talk about the objectively best dive watch under $1,000 today.
Andrew We are, and we've found it.
Everett Well, I mean, we found a few. We found some candidates.
Andrew We found many candidates.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Can I talk about the framing of it?
Everett Yeah, let's let's do that.
Andrew So those of you who who've been around for a while, you know that we are data loving, research driven people. And through that, we developed.
Everett We're all about the specs. We're pixel peepers.
Andrew Yeah. We developed a foolproof, scientific, infallible, perfect objective scorecard by which to judge a watch. As a reminder, first category is water resistance. One point for every 10 meters up to 110 meters. Because north of 110, you don't need it. So you get up to 11 points.
Everett I would rephrase that. One point for every 10 meters up to a hundred. Yes. And then one point for anything additional.
Andrew For any gravy.
Everett Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew That's how I would frame that. Okay. Size from 39 to 41 is a perfect 10. Each watch or a watch will lose one point for every half millimeter off of that window. That range. Movement. Out of 10. Graded on decoration, choice of movement, power reserve, serviceability. The whole, the movement. That's where we think about, what are you using to power this watch? The shoes, the bracelet, strap, options, size, fixed lugs, knot, quick release knot.
Everett Fit and finish.
Andrew Fit and finish. You know, I had some watches that lost points because they were weird sized bracelets or integrated, integrated bracelets lose a lot of points for me.
Everett And they, they might not for me.
Andrew The aesthetics, that's the overall objective judgment of the design of the watch durability. And this is kind of a wiggly space. Durability is, you know, it gets actual durability, right? The, Tejumented watches score a little bit. They get some points there. We also consider the versatility of the watch. We also consider like, is this a one trick pony?
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Like your ProPlof is not going to have a whole lot of durability points for me.
Everett And it probably would for me, you know, the, the, the durability score is a tough one and we may need to at some point rethink it. I struggled with it in this episode because you know, some of the things that we rate watches on, come with different ideas about durability. Like, for instance, a sapphire crystal gets good marks for durability because that is durable, but also an acrylic crystal gets good marks for durability because... Because you can buff it. Yeah, and it's less shatter-prone. And so that's a tough one, yeah.
Andrew Loom. What type of loom are they using? How is the loom... I'm not talking about painted on. I'm talking about... the life of the loom? What are the loom plots sizing? Are they in weird places? Are they doing something cool or unique? Like trit loom does really well for me, but it loses a point because it will just die. Like that's just a thing. When you buy tritium, you know that it will just eventually die and you have to replace the entire dial, which also then has an impact on durability.
Everett But it may also gain a point because it's got like sexy different colors.
Andrew Yes. So it's, it's a little bit tricky. But it's objective. Here is the only non-objective category, and it's only worth five points. So everything I talked to before Loom, 10 points, excluding water resistance, up to 11 points. Loom, five points. X-Factor, five points. X-Factor's where we get a little bit of like, how does this speak to me?
Everett Yeah, I think this is still objective, though.
Andrew How cool is this? How not cool is this? Is it boring? Yeah. Is it a rip of something? That's the only one that I would accept any kind of argument about the non-objective rating scale, an X factor, because inherently an X factor is a little closer to subjective than objective. Yeah, but it's still objective. It's purely objective. So we have our rating scale.
Everett Do you mind if I go through really quick the list of nominees here?
Andrew Well, we have, we still haven't even done it. Well, so I framed this episode around kind of on piggybacking on our episode from a couple of weeks ago on our favorite divers under a thousand. It's like, we talked about some of our favorites and now it's time to like really dive into it. And we expanded the list quite a bit.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew And we, we like really sussed out those, those things in the space. And so let's talk about the nominees.
Everett Yeah. So, so it just to kind of blast through these, right. Yeah. Um, and, and notably you said, Hey, I don't want to worry about new inbox availability, anything like that. Let's just go through these. These are watches. We know watches that at some point in the last handful of years, you could have bought watches that you can still probably get today. If you hunt a little bit. Um, and, and so pricing being what it is, these are all generally available or world available brand new inbox for under a thousand dollars. And you can still get them today. If not brand new inbox, then probably like new, still for under $1,000. So just from the top, in no specific order, the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Pro 300, a new watch, and we reviewed the 40 millimeter model. The Hamilton Khaki Navy Scuba, also in the 40 millimeter iteration, that's important to note. The Doxa Sub 200, the Astro Bank Sea Ranger, the Notice Avalon 2, the EMG Nemo, The Raven Trekker. The Seiko Samurai. The King Turtle. Oh, by the way, the Raven Trekker 39, the newer one. Yeah. The King Turtle. The Seiko Solar Paddy, I think it's the SNE 035. 435.
Andrew 435.
Everett Yeah. The Skriffa D1. The Kamasu. The 11 Atmos Skin Diver. The Neptune. The Laurier Neptune. The Casio MDV-106. The Helios Fairwind. The Dan Henry 1970 in the 40 millimeter iteration, the MK2 Paradive Mark III, the Noda Sector Dive for Skin Diver, and the Traska Freediver. So these are, this is obviously.
Andrew I also scored the Squalor 1521 and the Veyr D7. Okay. And the Veyro Crownpoint.
Everett So the, this is obviously not an exclusive list.
Andrew It's a big list though.
Everett It is this, and the amount of time this takes you guys is. Incredible. What, what do you, I mean, I think I have four hours into this. Easy.
Andrew Just scoring. Like not just, not just scoring, not even developing watches, not like, like recall, like, Oh, we're going to look at that. We need to look at that. And this represents just the watches that we felt worth. We're scoring. Yeah. Right. Not the watches that are like, Oh, that's a baller watch, but it's also 48 millimeters. It's not going to score well enough to hold up against this scientifically perfect scoring rubric.
Everett Yeah, that, that that's right. And so with that, we've identified six watches. We've identified six watches that are all going to make the list. Now, four of these watches we've agreed were our four highest scoring watches. We've got consensus. Yeah. There are four watches, consensus picks.
Andrew And then two watches... They were our four highest scoring watches for both of us.
Everett That's right.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett And then there were two watches on the list that on balance are very good contenders, but for each of us, we're as high as the other four, you know, for either of us. So one of these is Andrew's very high pick. One of these is my very high pick and the other didn't score poorly either. And we'll go into the specifics of that, but you've heard the list. I say we start at the bottom of our consensus and work our way
Andrew up as one does when announcing a winner of the objectively best X under X. That's right.
Everett That's right. Yeah. And, and so starting with our non consensus picks, how about that? Yes. And, and I'll kick this off because I think so just to, just to get, just to get the rubber on the road, I've scored this watch. at a 62. For context, my highest scoring watch today was a 63.5. So this is very close. This is the Hallios Fairwind. Now, Andrew, you scored this quite a bit lower, but I'm going to walk through my scoring on this. So water resistance, that's an 11. Size, that's a 10. Movement, now I believe this comes with the SW200-1. It gets an 8. For me, I give an SW200-1 an 8. I gave Bracelet a 9. And this is where it loses points for you. Yep. The Hallios Fairwood Bracelet is best in the biz. I mean, it's up there with Monta's. It's up there with the best Christopher Ward's in terms of feel and function. The quick release functionality on this thing is absolutely nuts. And so I gave it very high marks on Bracelet. I gave it a nine on aesthetics because this watch is a stunner in my mind. I gave it a nine on durability. It's got all the things, right? It's got ceramic, it's got sapphire, very high marks. Luma gets a four, which is an above average good score. You've got to have something special to get over a four in my book, like Indiglo. And for X-Factor, I gave it a four because this is a fucking cool watch. That comes out to 62 points. This is the third highest watch on my list overall. And it's only just a point and a half behind my very own fourth highest watch on my list and just a point and a half behind my highest, which is huge. Now, Andrew, you gave this a less high score, but still a very high score.
Andrew Talk us through it. So my score is a 59 on this.
Everett Which is good, which is very, very good.
Andrew Very good, right? Again, one of the higher scoring watches on my list. It lost points for me in the bracelet, durability, and X factor. And those were really critical points when we're averaging out our scores to decide on our highest scoring watches.
Everett So the grumbles, I can hear them. I can hear people at home grumbling right now.
Andrew Grumble away.
Everett Regarding so so Let's come back to bracelet durability.
Andrew Talk me through. Here's my thinking on durability. This isn't Obviously, it's got it's got sapphire. It's got ceramic. It's got all the things in my mind This durability is also the versatility. This is a tool watch The hard angles on it make it very tool watchy for me and it kind of paints it into the tool watch corner But it's not a tool watch because the ceramic and the brushing make it really elegant and beautiful. And it's just, it's just didn't do it for me in the, in the like go anywhere, do anything idea that is part of durability for me.
Everett Nonsense. In any event, bracelet, talk me through it.
Andrew I don't like the spacing on the bracelet. Like when you look at, look at the profile view when it's on the wrist. The chamfers on the links. Wait. OK, here, I'll just hand you my phone. The chamfer on the links is just a bit of a miss for me, and they're just too big. It almost makes it look like a like a ladder bracelet, right? Like there's there's a there's a space in there. I know there's not. But the way those chamfers work together, though, they are beautiful. And when it's flat, it's amazing in where it's just it's a little Just it loses a point for me. It's not going to get the full, the full score. And when we're, when we're nitpicking down to, you know, the difference between a point, that's the kind of stuff that I'm looking at. I'm like, I just, that isn't quite what I want.
Everett So not, not an honorable mention. This is on our official list of six. This is not an honorable mention. This is in the list. It is our number six spot. Actually it's our number five spot. And so the Helios Fairwind, right? These are not available. And they're not.
Andrew And they won't be for a very long time.
Everett And they're not exactly inexpensive in the grand world of watches. However, $775 is a fucking steal for this watch. And I think you would agree with that. 100%. This is perhaps one of the best values in low-end luxury watches, quality is going to be better than anything you can buy from Tissot or Tag Heuer, I would venture to say. Yeah, it was certainly in that range, right?
Andrew Yeah, okay, in that range.
Everett Certainly in like the under, you know, $2,500 range. I don't think there's another watch short of Manta that compares with this under $2,500.
Andrew No, definitely. It's certainly punching out of its league in the way of pricing.
Everett And I'll go on to say, I suspect this watch is probably slightly better than our number one pick, which we are going to get to in a while. We didn't score it as high because you've taken some marks off in a fine fashion. We can be critical. I think that this watch is probably one-to-one objectively slightly better than our number one pick. That's a spoiler.
Andrew It's super I mean, yeah, it's a spoiler. There's a lot of there's a lot of similarities there. But when when it comes down to the design decisions, and maybe that's where the issue is. Yeah, the our number one watch speaks to me more in the design decisions that were made.
Everett Andrew. Your highlight pick, which I've scored slightly lower.
Andrew The notice sector dive.
Everett Great. And I'm, I'm the owner of, I own this.
Andrew And we are the, I mean, a reason for the season as it were.
Everett Yeah. And if you, if you don't know that reference, uh, Wes and Colin have, are good friends of ours and they have told us, and they've said live on this show, as well as other shows that you're listening to an episode of 40 and 20 regarding skin divers was their chief inspiration in designing this watch.
Andrew Their realization that there was a place in the market, right? For exploitation. So sector dive, a hundred meters of water resistance, which in, in this category, you losing a point is hard.
Everett This is the only watch on my list that doesn't, Oh no, there's one other that loses a point for there's one.
Andrew It's the khaki.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Khaki scuba.
Andrew But losing a point's hard because this is a really tight race. I mean, the, the spread between like the true competitors and you know, the, the duds, right? Like the MDVs for me, the MDV 106 scores a 42, but generally we're looking at like 57 to 63.
Everett Yeah, that's right. These watches are all really close.
Andrew Cause they're spec'd out right. So losing a point right up front is big. Size is right. I give it an eight for its movement. You kind of contested the NH score of eight, but I think when you look at the scale, serviceability, reliability, I'm comfortable also with an eight. Yeah.
Everett I'm not, I'm not. That's, that's really the big difference between us.
Andrew Right. I, cause you don't give an NH35 an eight. You give an SW. Ever. You give an SW200 an eight. I, those are in the way of scoring for me. Those are comparable movements. I understand there's differences. But when you're looking at longevity, serviceability, accessibility, price, those are all things that matter and balance them out. You're not alone in your thinking here, yeah. Where are we next? An eight for the bracelet. I really like Notus's bracelets. I like their, just the whole suite. And one thing that I like about them is they're constantly improving on things. Yeah. They have a problem. They're like, Oh, I'm going to make that better. Like you, you could buy a watch today by the same watch in three months. And it might be slightly different and slightly better. An eight for aesthetics, a seven for its durability, five for its loom, very much like the loom application decisions. And it got a five for X factor because we, uh, are the sole reason that it exists.
Everett Perhaps not the sole reason, but certainly the driving factor, yeah.
Andrew Yeah, when we were the engine.
Everett Yeah, I don't know that there's a lot that we need to say about this watch. So where this loses points for me, so you scored this a 60, I scored it a 58. It only loses points in the movement. Now, we were off on a number somewhere else. Oh, in X Factor. There's some other places too. I scored this thing really highly in some places. In fact, I scored it one higher on the bracelet you did than you did. I gave it a nine because of that Nodex clasp. So I've got a 10-10 where it comes down. And let me talk you, let me, let me talk you folks through my, my movement rubric. So I, for, for these basic B automatic movements, I've got a setup and, and I don't even have to think about it. You do, you have a system. So for an NH movement or an F69 Orient movement, it's a six. I want to be able to give the Orient movement more than a six, but it is so close. It's slightly more accurate than an H, but it's they're so close. These are your. Heavily, heavily, heavily streamlined manufacturing process. They make a ton of these. They're not ornamented and they're both chunky.
Andrew And they don't have to be serviced because they're so inexpensive to use. Buy a new one and drop the bitch in.
Everett That's right. So I give an NH movement and an F69 movement a six. I give a Miota movement a seven. The Miota 9 series movements are phenomenal. I've used a Miota in my own watch. I think they're wonderful values. At cost, I can get these things at like 65 bucks, which is a fantastic value. They're super thin. They are incredibly thin. I think I give the Swiss movements, the ETA 28-24-2 and the SW-201 slightly higher grades. They're less noisy. They're just as ubiquitous, probably more so. They're thicker. No, no, just by the slightest margin. I mean, they're all essentially the same thickness.
Andrew So you agree that they should be scaled, scored the same?
Everett I probably, on balance, prefer the Swiss movements because you don't get that rotor noise. I don't mind the rotor noise, but it's annoying.
Andrew The rotor noise in an NH is like... The Miota.
Everett Yeah. And so I knock it down just a point for that. So I get a 6 on the NH on the 4R movements. I give a 7 on the Miota movements, the 9 series. And I give 8s on the 2824 and SW200. What do you give Solar? I give a solar a seven.
Andrew My eco drive.
Everett Seven. Spring drive. Nine, perhaps 10.
Andrew What's the difference between like a, just a run of the mill quartz and a hack?
Everett Uh, a hack?
Andrew Like a high accuracy quartz.
Everett Oh, a high accuracy quartz would be an eight. Okay. A run of the mill quartz is usually a five. A nicer Ronda quartz is a six or a seven, depending on how nice it is. Okay. Mecca quartz is Probably a seven or an eight, depending on which VK. Yeah. So I kind of know where to slot everything and I feel justified, but obviously there's some, there's some room to argue. And I accept your arguments regarding the NH versatility, durability, replaceability. I just don't, I just don't comply with that. So that's really the difference between these watches. I give the Sektor Dive lower scores on X-Factor because I think it's one of the least interesting watches in Notis' lineup. It is. However, durability, I give this thing a nine because I've worn the shit out of this, and it's just a super durable watch. That might be a little bit high, but I'm in there. I give it a seven because I don't think it's the most elegant or beautiful watch in their selection. So I'm giving it very high marks for bracelet, and I'm just moving things around, but we're pretty close there. So Sector Dive, man, 100 meters, which is obviously the least amount of water resistance on our list, But it's fine and it's good as our scoring rubric indicates.
Andrew In the heart and soul of a skin diver. That's what you need. That's it. Your hundred meter dive watch.
Everett That's right. Next. Yes. We're going to get to four and we're going to start. So these are our consensus picks. This is the start of our consensus picks, which means each of these scored above 60 on both of our lists. These are, for each of us, the four highest watches on our list.
Andrew You heard the list. In sequence.
Everett In sequence.
Andrew Yeah. That's actually, I mean, that's a little surprising to me that there wasn't the same variability.
Everett And, and these, these dive watches really, you get, you get into a flow here and there's, it's hard to differentiate these. I mean, in some ways these are really actually pretty objective ratings. We joke about that, but so with an average score, of 61 and just a little bit more. We didn't do the math because it was it was annoying.
Andrew Because you use partial points. Like, I think it deserves a third of a point. This one gets a gold star, too. Fuck!
Everett The Traska Freediver. Yes.
Andrew So. This is also a boring watch. Boring. It's a boring watch. Boring.
Everett But here's what it's not. Did it lose points for being boring anywhere on your list? Mine lost points on X-Factor. I only gave this a three, which is a fairly low X-Factor score because it's boring.
Andrew Uh, it would have if it didn't have the hardening.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew So it got a four for X-Factor.
Everett I gave it points in other place for the hardening so that it all balances.
Andrew It got points in a couple of places for the hardening. So here's the thing. The, the Freediver is boring, but it's not a sub rip off.
Everett And it's not bad boring either.
Andrew No, it's simple. boring. Boring is good. It's sophisticated, boring, but everything works. And we've talked about this with Traska. Their design is so deliberate and simple. Everything is there for a reason. I tell you, I, we talked about this maybe last week or the week before. I've like done things intentionally to try to mar the commuter and have not been able to do so.
Everett I feel like this is a theme of our show. We've talked about it multiple episodes.
Andrew Because it's phenomenal. It's amazing. Their hardening is terrific. It's well-sized. It comes in date and no date options for those of us who would prefer no date. Super Luminova, a 90 39 movement. It's Sapphire crystal. It's all the things you want in dive watch.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew With none of the frill, none of the tool watch appearance.
Everett None of the pomp or circumstance.
Andrew It's got pomp and circumstance, you know. Yeah, it sure does. It's got sapphire. It's got the fully articulating links. Like it's got some things like just some some nice little little touches.
Everett So we didn't need to go through this category by category.
Andrew I mean, it's got all the things.
Everett We don't need to go by, you know, line by line. But but let's talk about some notable categories. So this has, I gave this an eight and a half for bracelet and, and you don't like that. But the reason I gave it an eight and a half is because that bracelet is an eight bracelet. I gave it an eight. It's an eight bracelet for me. But when you add the perlage on the clasp, the, the scissor portion of the clasp and you add that, that, that coating, It's like, well, it's an eight bracelet. Yes, but it's better than an eight.
Andrew This, this bracelet.
Everett But it's also not a nine.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett A Manta bracelet's a nine.
Andrew It holds in comfort to me.
Everett A Hallios bracelet's a nine. Yeah. And so it can't be, it's not better than that, but it's better than an eight too.
Andrew Yeah. I accept that, that, that assessment. I gave it an eight cause it's an eight bracelet. It's super comfortable. It's well finished. It, it's, super comfortable. It's as it's as comfortable as my manta bracelet. Yeah, but it's not as good.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew And I can't tell you why.
Everett Yeah, it's not as good. Yeah, it's just not as good. It's not as good a bracelet. It's it's a budget bracelet.
Andrew But it's a 20 to 16 hardened perlage on the scissor. It's just it's got the details. It's got the things that make it so you for those of us who care, like, Oh, this is super intentional. Yeah, there's nothing about this. That's just like, Just throw it on.
Everett For durability, I give this a nine, which is realistically, it's the highest, it's the highest score on my list. And there's several of these watches that get a nine, but it's a nine.
Andrew It's a nine.
Everett It's a nine. X-Factor, I only give this thing a three because it's boring, but it still winds up being my fourth highest scoring watch.
Andrew And it gets a four for me because the hardening is unique in this space. We see hardening throughout watches.
Everett Are we ready to say the Traska Freedriver is just a totally spectacular and amazing watch?
Andrew We should. I mean, everything Traska is doing, it's 600 bucks.
Everett It is not the most expensive watch on this list by a wide margin.
Andrew It's it.
Everett This falls squarely in this falls squarely in the world of affordable entry level.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Entry level microbrand watches, and it's one of the best.
Andrew It's and it's very much for me a go anywhere, do anywhere. if you want a bezel, like a rotating bezel. Yeah. I, if for my money, I go some material commuter, but you know, whatever.
Everett All right.
Andrew We need to go to the next watch.
Everett Let's pull the bandaid off here because I'm a little nervous about this one because I feel a little sheepish. I'm not nervous. I feel a little sheepish.
Andrew And I think it's reasonable that you feel a little sheepish.
Everett Just a caveat, right? This watch was designed by one of the people who crafted this objective watch rating scale. Let's just get this out of the way. Yeah. Coming in at number three on our list is a watch that's available right now for purchase for $500 at fosterwatches.com. The Foster 11 Atmos Skindiver. Andrew, please, can you introduce and tell us about your decision-making on this watch? Oh, quickly. 62 and 62 on, on, oh no, 63 on my list and 61 on your list. for an average score of 62. Yes. The third highest dive watch under a thousand dollars.
Andrew So I'm willing to accept that we're biased, but here's the thing. Here's the, the spec list is on par with everything else on the list. Okay. So 11, I have to find my, my list is quite long. So I have to like find where it is. There it is. Perfect water resistance. And here's why. Not perfect. Better than perfect. It's got the gravy water resistance because it has 110 meters of water resistance. It's an 11. Perfect size. Gets an eight for movement because that's where I score that movement at. Gets an eight for bracelet because I've worn this bracelet. I've worn this bracelet elsewhere in the world. I know this bracelet is exceptionally comfortable. It's easy to size. It fits well to the watch. The design decision-making to pair the beads of rice to this watch makes perfect sense. It's a lot like Jubilee, but yeah. I'm not looking at your watch. I looked down at something else. It fits, it works, it makes sense. The aesthetics. I love the design. It's all the things that speak to me. The durability. It's got all the things. It fits everywhere. It's slim. It's discreet. It's three one six L steel. Yeah. And it's got, it's got an acrylic crystal. I should have buff. Yeah. Five for loom. I really like the, loom plot designs. And that's an important thing for me. It's not just what loom, right? Cause everyone's using C3 or BGW9. Some people are using some combination. If you're using something else, you're doing it wrong. I've seen this loom in action. I like, I like the decision making with the loom and then it gets an X factor for five because it's super fucking cool. The R yeah, I mean that's, that was my scoring. You, you, we probably have some point differences somewhere.
Everett Yeah, not many. You know, I think I scored it lower in some notable areas, right? I scored lower on movement. You gave an eight for movement. I give it a seven for movement. This is a seven movement. I've got a, I know where it slots. I slot it in. I was fair. Uh, loom, you gave it a five for loom. I give it a four for loom. You know, this, this is great loom, but there's nothing special about it. It's, it's just loom. Everybody's doing loom like this.
Andrew I like the way the loom plots, I like the markers that are loomed.
Everett You better believe I like it too. Uh, I felt sheepish about this when I first wrote it down. And this is the difference between our scores. One of the differences between our scores. For aesthetics, I was like, well, where do I rate this thing? Is it fair for me? And I think I initially wrote down on aesthetics, I think I initially penciled in a nine. So it's a really, it's a really, and I was like, no, This is a fucking 10. And you know how I know? Because I designed exactly the best looking watch I could possibly imagine. And so for me, objectively, this is a 10. This is the best looking watch that's ever been made, people, in terms of aesthetics. That's obviously silly. I appreciate everybody letting me take the piss on that. But look, it otherwise hits the marks. Our list was made long before this watch was even a figment of my imagination.
Andrew This watch in this list and this scoring scale informed your decision making for this.
Everett That's absolutely right. So the watch was custom made for the objective watch list. I gave it a five on X Factor. It's one of two fives on my list. The other one not making our top five or top six was the MDV 106. The only other five on my list for X Factor. So obviously taking some liberties. Uh, with that said, I don't think it's taking liberties.
Andrew Cause here's some, here's a couple of cool things. And if we haven't talked about foster enough, this isn't a, well, no, the show is kind of sponsored by foster. Here's the thing you have equity. You, you have a case that is a case back recessed into the case to allow for your case shape and maintain your thinness. Right. That's not revolutionary. But it's unique. Viva. But then you have a revolutionary bezel technology that you didn't invent yourself. In fairness. But that was developed for sort of application in your watch. That's dope. Yeah. It's weird. It's different. And everything makes sense. That's a five and X factor. I love it. I'm not going to give it a 10 aesthetics because there's some end link issues that I can't overcome. Dick. Also some dial color choices that just like somehow didn't come to fruition.
Everett Number two on our list. Yes. Coming in at a combined score of 62.5 is a watch that presently is a little difficult to buy.
Andrew It is. But you know what this this watch needed to be discussed.
Everett And also, I have it on good. I have it on good information that this watch is coming back. In addition to this watch coming back, there'll be a new version that's going to be significantly different. But our number two watch is the Astor and Banks out of Chicago. Andrew Perez, Astor and Banks Sea Ranger. Holy shit, man.
Andrew It's like, is that it?
Everett OK, I am. I miss this watch. I miss it being available. This, when it came out, was the belle of the ball. It is still today, I think, along with only one other watch on our lists, the EMG Nemo, one of the most underrated watches ever, ever created. The Astromancy Ranger from the asymmetric case.
Andrew And so subtle about it too. Yeah. It's not a marathon asymmetric case.
Everett Or a Benris or something, right?
Andrew It's not something weird, but it's asymmetric on purpose and it works.
Everett Kind of like a watch from another brand, Foster.
Andrew Who is a sponsor of today's show, and it will be paying me directly.
Everett The Astro Banks Sea Ranger. I'll tell you, Andrew. So let me walk through my scores on this because, um, This is a special watch, so water-resistant size, obviously perfect marks. Yep. Movement, we've got the SW200. It's an 8.
Andrew Also an 8 for me.
Everett Bracelet, I gave it an 8. That's not the best score you can get on bracelet, but it's pretty damn good.
Andrew It's a damn good bracelet.
Everett That's a damn good bracelet. Aesthetics, I give this thing a 9 because I think it is so good looking. I know not everybody loves the asymmetric case. I'm here for it. The second I saw that thing, I was like, that's one of the best looking cases I've ever seen. When I put it on, I was like, oh man, I have to buy it. Durability, we're getting top marks. This is Sapphire everywhere. Yep. Top marks. Loom, the loom on this thing is insanely good. It gets a four because practically speaking, that's the highest I'm giving it. And X-Factor, I'm giving it a four, right? It needs something a little bit additional. to get to that next space. But I mean, these are basically perfect scores.
Andrew Yeah. And we're existing in a space where one point is the difference. That's right. I love Andrew's design in this. I love the pop of color with the second hand. I love the asymmetric case and the way that the asymmetric case is almost shrouded by the bezel. So you don't immediately notice it.
Everett Yeah. And the chamfer is kind of, it falls off from the case. So you don't really know what's there until you get it in your hands.
Andrew Yeah. Everything about this was really, really deliberate and I'm really excited for the next iteration.
Everett All right. Before we go to our topic, I would like to talk about some honorable mentions. Andrew, is that okay? So as we discussed in our sub $1,000, uh, in our, in our sub $1,000 episode, We've got a couple of real budget bangers. The MDV 106, the Casio MDV 106 doesn't get super high marks. I've got this at a 48 and I think you were pretty close to that.
Andrew Yeah, about there. 44, 46, something like that.
Everett And so this loses points. It loses points on movement. It loses points on strap, which is basically non-existent.
Andrew Throw it on a nylon though, man.
Everett It loses a point on loom. which is kind of weird in this space. Most of these watches have phenomenal loom. The MDV 106 loom is best. Um, with that said at 60 bucks, 50 or 60 bucks that you can pick these up at, there is no doubt in my, Oh, and also a big one size. This thing's a chunk, a monster. And so it loses points here for size But that doesn't matter.
Andrew Even if it was sized properly, it still wouldn't score well.
Everett It's a big dive watch. It is a big dive watch. And that's okay. It's okay to be a big dive watch. And so it loses points there, but everywhere else, it's really rocking things. And for 50 bucks, I mean, you'd be hard-pressed to go any better.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett The Komasu, you ranked a Mako, I ranked a Komasu. These watches are hard to distinguish. Komasu's got sapphire. Mako doesn't. And the Kamisus, the new ones at least have the F69 movements. I'm not sure all the Makos do.
Andrew The Kamisus has some less polish on it too, which I actually prefer.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. So 53 for 280 bucks. Dang. That's the best sub $300 watch, no doubt about it. We've talked about this. It's the best sub $300 dive watch. Yes. No doubt about it. If someone says, I want a great dive watch for normal human prices. Look at the Kamasu.
Andrew Yep. I scored the scurf a diver one really well. Yeah. It's because it banged in X factor for me and loom. Cause this is just, this is a dive watch in the truest form. Yeah. It's everything short of a dive computer. Yeah. And I think I needed to mention it.
Everett It didn't go that well on mine, but, but that's okay. Um, The King Turtle. The King Turtle gets a 52 on my list, but that is with a two score on the size. Given a perfect score on size, which there's an argument to be made that the King Turtle is a perfect dive watch size. Yeah. This is a 60. And all of a sudden it becomes for 500 bucks, one of the best dive watches you can buy. Same with the Avalon, right?
Andrew Oh yeah, the Avalon.
Everett Avalon loses five points for size and still gets a 57. Give it those five points.
Andrew I'm at a 56 with its size loss, but if you give it five size, if you bring it down a couple of millimeters.
Everett All of a sudden we're at 61 and 62 and we've got a top five watch. Yeah. Top six watch. Uh, so I think that's really our honorable mentions. Anything else you want to throw in there?
Andrew Mm.
Everett No. So without further ado, Andrew, we agreed at under a thousand dollars, this is the objectively best dive watch that you can buy ever. But actually today, unanimously, unanimous top pick both of our lists is I wish I had a drum roll thing on the do we have one?
Andrew No, no, I don't have this, though. That's different.
Everett Number one pick consensus all-american-ish British Christopher Ward c60 trident pro 300 specifically for our purposes the 40 millimeter version but important to note there's also a 38 and a 42 yes on a bracelet a thousand fifty dollars today not quite under a thousand dollars not on a bracelet you're coming in under a thousand that's right that's right Objectively the best with a combined score of 63.25 owing to Andrew's 63 and my 63 and a half. And I can explain my half point. I give that to movement. I give that to movement. This is using an SW200-1, but it is a decorated, beautiful, lovely 200-1.
Andrew And it remained at an 8 for me.
Everett So basically one-to-one across the board. Tell me about this watch.
Andrew So we got to see these in person in October. In the act. And I knew this was going to be good. I didn't. I knew it was going to be good and I knew it was going to be good. Did we see it in October? No, we saw the Aquitaine in October. Was it? No.
Everett No, we saw this in New York.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where there's a lot of watches there, but. I remember knowing it was going to be good and then holding it and being like, how do they do it? Like Christopher Ward is doing something so special in this. Affordable space, and I think that like they are one of the driving forces in what has redefined affordable watches for me. I think two brands have really done that, Manta and Christopher Ward, because they're doing things that are consistent with luxury watch brands in the like $2,000 and much higher playing space. Yeah. And they're doing it for, you know, Montez hanging around that $2,000 range, but they're also doing things at they're punching out of their league also. Yeah.
Everett Christopher Ward's more attention, more attention to the, to the aesthetic details and Monta and they're, you know, they're, they're doing things that are from other watch brands, three and $4,000 hands and markers. And these things that some people don't care about, that's fine if you don't, but they're really, really good.
Andrew Christopher Ward is doing something at a thousand dollars that other brands are doing it to 25, $2,700. And I was just blown away. It's like, okay, I get it. I want it. It's number one. It's beautiful. It's simple. It's well thought out. Their design team is killing it. And then it's specked. And then all the things that you know that you want, it has, it's got a great, bracelet. I love Christopher Ward's bracelets. And when they decided to do a more significant taper rather than 20 to 19.99 Evan, 20 to 18 is not a taper.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew When they did, when they unrolled their 16 and a half or whatever, their greater taper, I was, I was like, Oh, well, I don't know what else you can do to make this better.
Everett We've been vocal critics of the lack of taper and Christopher going so far as to call Mike France out to it on it to his face on our show on the air.
Andrew And they weren't blind to it. They knew and they were developing the remedy. Yeah. It was a unbeknownst to us. Yeah. That was a bit of a ballsy move on our part, but we did it. And Mike's like, yeah, no, that's your, you're correct in that. And we're, we have something in the works. Yeah. I don't have, I don't really know what else to say about this watch.
Everett Yeah. I mean, between the light catcher case, light catcher, it's like catcher, right? That's yeah. I'm making a scene between the light catcher case and the phenomenal bracelet technology. You really, I mean, there's more, then meets the eye with these bracelets too with their hinge technology and their pivot technologies. There's a lot going on here.
Andrew Quick adjust is the only bitch I have with their quick adjust is when I think quick adjust, like in terms of functionality, like for my purposes, it's totally fine. For dive purposes, it's not great. You should be able to manipulate your quick adjust from the exterior of the clasp. And I wouldn't like that.
Everett And in fairness to the folks that are detractors of this clasp, because there are some, it's a big clasp. I know Mike Rezak of Worn and Wound, formerly of Watch Clicker, formerly of Tempest Fugit, now at Worn and Wound, good friend of mine, good friend of yours. Mike Rezak is pretty critical of this clasp because of its length.
Andrew Because he has those little baby wrists.
Everett and it's
Andrew I have super round wrists.
Everett Yeah, you've got cylinder wrists.
Andrew Yeah. I have tubes between my hand and elbow. Um, and it works for me. Yeah. And we wear, you know, within the quarter inch, same bracelet size.
Everett And so I, I don't, I mean, I think that they're as close to perfection as at under a thousand dollars as you're going to get.
Andrew And more than you could ever reasonably expect.
Everett And I put this on par, I put this on par for my wearing experience with Manta, with an Ocean King or whatever, right? And in fact, because of the size at 40 millimeters, I probably slightly prefer this.
Andrew And you can get it in a 38. Yeah. That's right. That's right. If you, if you want to size down, I, I, I do have some issues with dimensions at 38 in, in just the designs choices that they made.
Everett Yeah, they did make some interesting choices, yeah.
Andrew But I think at 40 it's perfect. Agreed. The 42 is obviously, it's bigger than I want. The 38, just the dimensions are just a touch off from what I'd want. It's clear that it was designed to be a 40 millimeter watch, but they wanted to expand the line and they did a good job of it, right? This is super nitpicky stuff. Yeah. Because if this watch only came out in 38, I would be just as excited about it. But because I have options, I can complain about the ones I don't
Everett yeah this one's too hot this one's too cold this one's just right yes yeah well we we have ordained i think at this point christopher ward the king of the sub-one thousand dollar space many times over and once again here they are at the top in the throne c60 trident pro 300 notably the new release not the 600 the 600 is a wonderful watch We're talking about the new release, Trident Pro 300 from Christopher Ward. Check it out. If you don't know, now you know.
Andrew If you didn't know, I don't know where you've been. Andrew, I think we did it. As we're known to do. 220 sometimes. 23, I think now. I think today's 23, yeah.
Everett Andrew, other things. What you got?
Andrew So a moment ago,
Everett You've just now come up with this.
Andrew A moment ago, I was like, man, we're done. No, we're not. And it occurred to me, it's like, I have another thing. I just know what it's going to be. I watched a short series on that's available on Netflix. It's not new. It's four episodes. Chef's table barbecue.
Everett Oh, yeah.
Andrew And I've never watched that chef's table before. And I want to talk about just one episode. And forgive me, because I am just now recalling that I needed to have another thing prepared. It's episode one, and it highlights Fire Door in Australia. And Fire Door is a super unique restaurant. And they tell the backstory of the chef who founded this restaurant. And he, you know, he kind of has a pretty common chef's story, right? I love food. I got really obsessed with this thing. I loved ingredients. I wanted to go find the best person to do it. And I went and I worked with this guy and he really inspired me. And then I needed to go out on my own. There's a lot more to his story and it's, it's really a beautiful story. But that's the broad brush. It's the broad brush.
Everett The broad brush is pretty typical.
Andrew But his, so what he realized was that his passion was cooking with fire.
Everett Me too.
Andrew Um, in, in the most extreme sense of the word. And I don't mean like blowtorch fire. I mean like every aspect of the fire from coal to smoke. So he opens, they tell the story of this endeavor of him to find a place to open his restaurant and to custom fabricate all of his cooking implements and his grills and his ovens because nothing in his restaurant isn't cooked over wood fire or by wood fire. whether it be scooping coals into the bottom of something to burn off and smoke. Every single thing that's served in that restaurant is cooked from a wood fire.
Everett Every piece of harvested living creature served in that restaurant is cooked- Every vegetable, every pastry- By deforestation of a rainforest.
Andrew Yeah, but it's Australia. They have tons of available timber. Totally. It was like, as I was watching this, I was like, I'm moving to Australia. I'm going to go work for this guy who's like kind of weird.
Everett Hear me out. Snakes and spiders.
Andrew Oh, like all of the deadliest things on the planet live in Australia, right? And I've lived in the South where a lot of things can kill you. It doesn't, it pales in comparison to Australia.
Everett Correct.
Andrew I'm clearly not going to move to Australia to be a line chef or a line cook. at Fire Door, but it was just this really beautiful story. It was really fascinating because it was unique. Right. You see a lot of these shows and it's like kind of the same humdrum like, oh, yeah, you know, I was inspired by French cooking and then I said, I'm going to cook in Spain and I went to Spain and was just inspired by Spanish cooking. And then I decided to, you know, tap into my Thai roots and started a restaurant. It was like Spanish Thai fusion. It's like, OK, cool. Like that looks really good. I like your story. It's certainly interesting, but his was unique in that it was like, I don't, I just want to cook with fire, like with wood fire and that's it. It was interesting. The rest of the series is good. They highlight a, um, fellow in South Carolina who is doing, uh, still actively doing, uh, whole hog roast, like in the super traditional, learned it from his dad who learned it from his dad who learned it from his dad, whole hog roasts. And he's got a, you know, kind of the story of tragedy and then overcoming it and coming back. I mean, all these people, they find the people who have these stories. That's why it seems like every famous chef or, you know, James Beard chef has these stories because that's, that's who they find to highlight. They do, uh, uh, an episode, which is also really cool of, um, Mayan people.
Everett Oh,
Andrew who are living in like still traditional Mayan fashion, which prompted me to look up some of their recipes. And it's like, I can do that in a crock pot. It's not going to be as good, obviously, but I can do that shit in a crock pot. But it was, so Chef's Table Barbecue, it's a winner. It's, it's kind of, Chef's Table is not the typical chef show. It's the kind of travel channel, like, like heartfelt story.
Everett Yeah, definitely artsy. Yeah.
Andrew You get a lot of like like wide aperture, wide aperture, like a single person kind of teary eyed and with their kitchen in the background kind of stuff. But I loved it. I will watch it again and I will probably watch it again after that. Yeah. Yeah. But I loved it. Chef's table barbecue. Check it out. It's four episodes. They're like an hour long each ish. So it's not a big time investment. If you're only going to watch one, watch episode one. highlighting fire door. And if you ever find yourself in Australia and you're going to be there for six months, make a reservation so that you can go six months out. Cause that's how long it takes. I did look it up. They're open for three hours a day, four days a week, which is kind of makes sense given that they're born burning. Processes are so, and they're burning an enormous fire for those three hours. Like really the whole day. Like, so basically for four days, the building is on fire. So it's, I imagine there's a safety concern there.
Everett Well, I've got another thing, Andrew, and I didn't even come up with this last minute. I was pre-prepared.
Andrew Oh yeah. You came loaded. I know this thing. Do me.
Everett Pre-lubed for this. That's how I like it. So obviously we have come to this watch world in part because of our love for photography, which for both of us has developed as we got into photography. I think you and I both sort of struggle with photography and motivation and wanting to take pictures versus.
Andrew Because we'll take so much better pictures than we do.
Everett So I have for a long time been a Nikon shooter. So I shot for many, many years. a Nikon D7100, and then I upgraded to a Nikon D7200, which was an incremental upgrade. In 2017, Nikon released the D7500. So just some context, the Nikon D7000 series is an APS-C. It's an APS-C, meaning a crop sensor camera. which is a smaller sensor than a quote unquote full frame sensor. So if you talk about like a D850 or whatever, these are their full frame cameras, certainly like a D5 or, you know, a crop sensor is a smaller sensor and there's some limitations, but the technology is very good today. Anyway, I've just, I've long decided I'm a Nikon crop sensor, APS-C shooter. So I've had a number of these cameras. I think two years ago, finally upgraded my D 7200 to a D 7500. And the primary reason was Bluetooth capabilities. I was feeling frustrated that I couldn't transfer photos from my camera to my phone easily. And so I got this 7500. I spent not a lot of money on this. I think it's like 800 or 900 bucks brand new and box. And so I got a D 7500. I love it. It is a phenomenal camera. And I've got a lot of fantastic I've got the best crop sensor lenses, as well as some full-frame lenses. My primes are mostly full-frame, but they work just fine. You just have a longer effective length. So I've got this Nike... This is not the biggest camera. It's not like D5 size or whatever. It's not a huge journalist camera.
Andrew Yeah. You don't have like a shoulder harness, double shoulder with a mount.
Everett Right. Brace. That's right. I mean, certainly, but it's, it's just big. It's a big, serious camera. And especially if I put my like, uh, 18 to 55, you know, big Nikon professional glass on it, it winds up being a giant camera. You need a tripod. It's not pocketable in any stretch of by any stretch of the imagination. It's you can't really fit it in your briefcase. I mean, this is you need a dedicated bag for this if you're going to carry it or you put it over your shoulder and you've got this giant thing. It's just not portable. This is not a convenient camera, but it is my camera of choice and I love it. But I've recently been struggling with the idea of taking pictures on the go. I've got a couple other cameras and the one that's been calling out to me the most is this little tiny sensor kind of crappy camera from 2013 it's a Fujifilm it's not an APS-C Fuji. It's a smaller sensor than that. It's a one over 2.33 inch sensor.
Andrew That's what you got that Fuji for, was to be your briefcase camera.
Everett That's right. That's right. So this is my briefcase camera. It has been calling out to me mostly because of the form factor. This camera, however, does not transfer via Bluetooth. It doesn't have the Wi-Fi. It doesn't have Bluetooth. And I'm kind of a knucklehead sometimes, right? And I just don't think through things. I, this week, was reading about this camera and also looking at other cameras. There's another other thing. I'm going to leak another thing. Or tease another thing, I should say. Because that's coming up. But I have been carrying this camera. It doesn't shoot phenomenal pictures. The sensor is, you know, all modern digital sensors are good. In the grand range of all things being good, this is on the low end of those capabilities. essentially a very well-built, slightly better sensor digicam. This is a point-and-shoot. It's got a fixed lens, but it zooms from 28 to 105, I think. It's a wonderful camera. I love it. I love shooting it. I love carrying it. It feels good. It looks good. But it doesn't take the best pictures. And so that's the TC. With that said, it's so convenient that it's hard to argue against carrying it. But the transfer thing was bothering me. I don't want to get out my computer and then transfer things to my computer, to my phone. And I'm reading about cameras and someone's like, I'm reading a forum about, you know, wireless SD cards. They used to make these Wi-Fi SD cards that in and of themselves connect to your network. But these things have gone the way of the Dodo.
Andrew That's a cool thing.
Everett It is cool.
Andrew But there's better technology to.
Everett They were problematic and they basically stopped making them. You can still find them, but they're outrageously expensive, like 400 bucks for a 64. You know, you know, it just doesn't make sense.
Andrew It's a novelty. It's like a collector's item.
Everett That's right. Nobody's really using these. And I'm like, where do these things go? Well, everybody's using SD card readers. And it turns out Apple makes a dedicated SD card reader for the iPhone. And it's like 30 bucks. 28 something.
Andrew I'm looking. And you have $28.99 on the Amazon.
Everett You plug it into your goddamn phone via the lightning port. You stick the SD card in and the shit's there. It's just there. It's just there. You click the photos you want to import. You import them. It takes zero time. And I don't know why I have been overthinking this.
Andrew I'm surprised you didn't know that was a thing. I know. I have multiples of that.
Everett That is so dumb. It is so dumb. I finally figured it out. I got one of these things and I have been taking so many more pictures because all of a sudden it's opened my world.
Andrew Oh, and you can dump your SD card every day.
Everett That's right. Oh my gosh. It has been the most important thing in my desire to take photos that I can ever remember. Maybe, maybe the only other thing I can think of is getting my first sort of low, uh, you know, low F-stop wide aperture prime lens, you know, that first 1.4 50, my Sigma. And I was like, Oh my God, you know, like every beginner camera, the first time you see that, that bocalicious like separation, Oh my God, that's not what it looks like. This has been a similar, level of joy for me. Being able to take pictures in this old stupid Fuji, stick the damn card into my phone and instantly transfer them is just completely changed the way I think about taking pictures. It's reinvigorated my desire to take pictures. I guess this is not an other thing that is going to shock many of you, but for those of you who do feel shocked by this revelation, Go buy one. Go buy one right now. There's an Amazon link in the show notes. We're not affiliates. It's stupid. We need to be. We don't get any money from it.
Andrew I don't know how to get it. I don't think we could produce enough traffic to get an affiliate link.
Everett Just go freaking buy one of these because holy shit, it is. And it opens up my world. Every time I look at cameras, I'm like, well, that's a cool camera. Everybody loves it, but also no Bluetooth. So I probably shouldn't buy it because I won't use it. I know. I know. This is, I mean, look, this is real life. This sounds really stupid and you can make fun of me if you want. And I don't just mean you, I also mean you at home, but it's a real thing, right? This is a struggle for me.
Andrew And so now... I'm so glad you solved that problem that's been solved for a decade. All of a sudden... I got one of these things when I got the first generation iPad. in like 2012. I know, man.
Everett OK. I don't know what to say. OK. It's been an important thing for me, though.
Andrew I mean, really, I got one of these for my camera to put photos onto my iPad with the first generation iPad.
Everett I cannot overstate how much this has affected me.
Andrew It is crazy. This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen a smart person. I know. Just like, I'm so proud of you. Yeah, I know. That's a weird knowledge gap.
Everett It's so obvious, too. I saw this thing and I was like, that can't possibly work, right? Because it's so simple and it makes perfect sense. That's exactly right. I was like, this is so simple that if this worked, I would have done it before, right? Surely. Surely.
Andrew And for those of you who are also having a moment in Revelation, it's there. Yeah, we have cameras that talk to phones, but we don't.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Let's look like it.
Andrew It's silly. Here's here's another. Here's another one. You can use a you don't have to have an air compressor or go to the gas station and put a quarter in. You can use the bike pump in your garage to inflate your car tires because air is air.
Everett Can you actually do that? Can you get the PSIs necessary? I mean, I've never tried it.
Andrew On your road bike, your PSI is probably like 80 to 110 pounds.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Your car is like 35.
Everett Yeah. Maybe 55. Go figure. I've never tried it.
Andrew That's, that's really, that's. Here I am. I'm just dropping bombs right now. It's tremendous.
Everett I can't tell if you're being real. I never even considered it. You're being real. Yeah. Never even considered it. Okay. I've got a really nice bike bump too.
Andrew Yeah. You got one with a Presta and a standard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, you can inflate your, your car tires with a, with a bicycle pump because it's way less PSI than your bicycle.
Everett The more, you know, rainbow with the twinkle and the, the jingle where, where, you know, we're out here changing the world.
Andrew One other thing at a time, Everett, we've done it. Your other thing is a revolution. I'm sorry. I'm making fun of you. I'm just shocked that you didn't know this. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's fair.
Everett It's like it. I hope everyone at home can realize how genuine this is for me.
Andrew Yeah, I'm sorry I'm making fun of you for it.
Everett Hey you guys, thanks for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the WatchClicker podcast. You can check us out at our website, WatchClicker.com. That's where we post every single episode of this podcast as well as weekly reviews and articles and other good stuff. WatchClicker.com. If you want, you can check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20 underscore WatchClicker or at WatchClicker, of course. If you want to support what we're doing here and oh boy, we hope you do. This is expensive. You can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Hey, that is how we afford all of the hosting, all of the software, all of the hardware necessary to host a website and a podcast and to produce both things. Patreon.com slash 40 and 20. And also don't forget to check us out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.