Hands-On Victorinox I.N.O.X. Professional Diver Review

Not that long ago, we reviewed the Victorinox I.N.O.X Paracord watch. Today, we have a look at the I.N.O.X Professional Diver. This is basically the bigger (45mm) brother of the 43mm I.N.O.X (Paracord) and comes with a uni-directional rotating bezel.

I.N.O.X. Professional Diver

This watch is very similar to the I.N.O.X. Paracord that we reviewed in this article. However, the styling is somewhat different, the size is different and in the end, the I.N.O.X. Professional Diver is a tad bit cheaper than the 43mm Paracord model. It retails for 589 Euro instead of 599 Euro for the Paracord model. Only 10 Euros, but still. You don’t get the fancy box or the Paracord strap though.

However, if you will be using this watch as a diving piece, the Paracord strap is probably not for you anyways. And you will need that unidirectional rotating bezel. The Paracord model had a fixed stainless steel bezel.

Heavy Duty Watch

The Victorinox I.N.O.X. Professional Diver is a serious timepiece. The stainless steel case feels like a solid block and unbreakable. I am not a diver, but I can imagine you don’t want to worry about the wristwatch you are wearing while diving. This I.N.O.X. Professional Diver has a unidirectional diving bezel that feels reliable and is easy to grasp. The 60 minute diving scale is used to set the remaining diving time, the 60 marker is a large and luminous dot. Readability and legibility is not an issue with this I.N.O.X. Professional, at all.

Features

The I.N.O.X. Professional Diver is water resistant to 200 meters. It also complies to the ISO 6425 standards and is therefore a certified diving watch. Furthermore, it has a screw-down crown, caseback and a sapphire crystal. The quartz movement has an End-of-Life indicator, showing you when it is time to have the battery replaced. We don’t recommend that you do this yourself, especially if you do use the watch for diving (or near water anyway). The gasket might need a replacement as well, to ensure its water resistance.

The quartz movement also has a date feature. Victorinox also indicates that the watch is capable of showing military time, but that is basically a 24-hour scale printed on the dial. We don’t feel that this add much to be honest.

Variation

Victorinox offers a bit of variation for the I.N.O.X. Professional Diver, as it is available in blue (like the one here), yellow, red and black. This means that not only the dial carries these colors, also the strap come in matching colors.

Bumper and Magnifier

The I.N.O.X. Professional watch that we received also came with a rubber (or plastic) protector and a separate dial magnifier. The solid stainless steel case already feels like a big block (weighing almost 145 grams), I wonder why it would need a protector. Perhaps to prevent the case from being scratched, but not sure if a heavy-user of this divers watch would really care about that. The magnifier thing is a separate part that needs to be put on top of the sapphire crystal, before applying the protector to the watch. This way, it will stay put.

Again, the I.N.O.X. collection is said to be able to handle extreme conditions, like a 10 meter drop, 20 bar pressure and Victorinox claims that a 64 ton tank drove over it to proof its toughness. The bumper is a bit too gimmicky for me.

Dial, Case and Strap

The case and strap feels nothing short of quality. The case is properly made, to be said in-house (most watch manufactures work with case suppliers) and the genuine rubber strap feels very comfortable. The watch is rather thick, but nothing out of proportion for a 45mm divers watch. The brushed finish is nicely done on the case, the crown is signed with the Victorinox Swiss Army logo and the screw-down caseback tells us all relevant information about this watch. The bezel has 6 angled edges that make it easy to grasp it. On these polished surfaces you will find the Arabic numerals indicating the remaining diving time.

A Dial With Details

The blue dial is very clear and readable, has a nice raised Victorinox Swiss Army logo at 12 o’clock and nice raised round hour markers filled with lume. Special attention for the date aperture, it shows a lot of depth while there are no annoying gaps or holes to be left. The dial has all need-to-know information on there as well, such as the depth-rate, the fact that the watch is anti-magnetic and the model’s name of course. All is very well balanced.

The 24-hours numerals are printed in red and correspond with the red seconds hand. Again, the watch could have done without the 24-hours scale to be honest, and making the seconds hand in the same color doesn’t help much, as that hand isn’t much of help indicating the military time zone. It looks nice though (in red), so that’s probably why Victorinox chose to do this.

Some Thoughts

The Victorinox I.N.O.X. Professional Diver is a well-build watch, the I.N.O.X. case feels like a tank and was actually driven over by one to proof its toughness. I am not worried about its toughness, also not of its looks and appearance. It is a great and tough looking watch, ready to guide you in whatever (water) adventure on a Sunny exotic location. Or just being your companion as a desk diver under artificial light.

A Lot To Choose From

In both cases, the price tag of approximately 600 Euro does offer some alternatives. If you belong to the desk diver category, there is a lot out there in this price range, including some interesting micro brand alternatives.

For the professional diver, the Seiko Prospex PADI SUN061P1 diver comes to mind with Kinetic movement (and GMT hand, a real 24-hours function). Actually, for this amount, you can also choose from a couple of mechanical Seiko Divers, as Michael Stockton suggested in this article. Except for the Seiko Monster in that article, they don’t feel as solid as this I.N.O.X. Professional though. So if that is what your aiming at, this could be your watch.

More information about the Victorinox I.N.O.X. Professional Diver reference 241734 can be found here.