Long Term Review : Tudor Pelagos

Readers would know that I flipped the Tudor Heritage Black Bay a while back but kept its sibling i.e. Tudor Pelagos Ti5. There must be a reason for keeping the Pelagos, right? There had been e-mails coming in with regards to queries on the Pelagos, which I had been answering from time to time; but there had not been an actual review. I see the Pelagos as a long-term keeper and therefore wanted to do a long-term review. Well, here it was.

Baselworld 2012 saw the release of Tudor Pelagos Ti5 and Tudor Heritage Black Bay Burgundy; while Baselworld 2013 saw the release of Tudor Monte Carlo Blue.

And all three models were models that I had an interest on, although the local ADs were not giving discounts (especially on the Pelagos Ti5) as the market was on an over-demand situation. Economics 101. Tip of the day was that you could sometimes get better pricing from overseas AD depending on availability and Forex. With my business travels, I could therefore sometimes net bargains this way.

Ultimately, the choice went towards a very worthy opponent i.e. the toolish and unassuming Tudor Pelagos.

Launched together with the Heritage Black Bay during Baselworld 2012, the Pelagos had many similarities and differences when compared to its more affordable sibling in the BB. The most obvious similarity was the usage of the Tudor-modified ETA 2824-2 caliber in Top Grade form. Essentially a known workhorse in the Swiss horology world, I had many Swiss watches using this ETA movement; but when Tudor modifies it, it's obviously more desirable and premium from the rest.

Both were cased in a 42mm format, which was a good size to many watch collectors although there was a current tendency towards watches bigger than 44mm these days. Both used the snowflake hand that Tudor Submariner of the past was famous for.

Both have precise bezel movements that Rolex was known for, with zero lag play. Very confidence-inspiring.

As for the differences, the Pelagos maintain the date cutout while BB did away with the date to maintain its heritage inspiration. For practicality, I would personally prefer the date function and I liked the way that Pelagos was designed such that it still looked symmetrical across the dial, with no Cyclops as per the Submariner.

The premium one pays for in the Pelagos goes towards the choice of material i.e. Grade 5 titanium, as opposed to stainless steel in the BB. Titanium obviously made it very light and my personal experience was that you could almost forgot that you had the Pelagos strapped on your wrist during the day.

Pelagos' matt grey case with the matt black dial made it a very unassuming and toolish watch, that would not attract unwarranted attention. BB on the other hand, was a very bling-bling watch, especially with that burgundy red bezel that would catch the public's attention easily.

And one must mention the bracelet when it comes to Tudor. If I thought that the BB's bracelet was comfortable when worn, Pelagos took it a notch higher and its version of the GlideLock system made it all the more comfortable when one's wrist expands or contracts throughout the day. After wearing the Pelagos bracelet, I am definitely spoilt for choice and felt that other bracelets were inferior to the Pelagos'.

Pelagos' bracelet also had a hidden diver extension link as it was good for 500m, as opposed to BB's 200mm WR. The Pelagos was a professional diver watch comparable to my Omega Seamaster Professional Planet Ocean with 600m WR. I did a pictorial comparison between both watches in this posting @ Face-Off : P vs P.

The Pelagos lume was truly a marvel at night and could last throughout the night when charged under the sun for the day.

And being an Isofrane fan, I obviously had high standards when it came to rubber straps; but I am glad to report that Tudor's rubber strap was rather soft and comfortable to wear, and the buckle was designed to look like its shield in true Tudor fashion. There was even a diver extension rubber strap included in its package. And check out the end link included in the package too.

All in all, I found the Pelagos to be a good professional watch that aimed to be toolish and unassuming, albeit very low-profile. You could wear it all day long and it would not look out of place anywhere and anytime. It's definitely one of my fave go-to watches.

I could see this watch attaining cult status as that of the DSSD, in time. And compared to the re-release of Pelagos v2 launched in March 2015, which no longer have the lume bit at the date (less symmetrical to me) and had the crowded 5-liner on the dial (compared to only 2-liner on Pelagos v1), I could see collectors making a bee-line towards v1. That was, of course, just my 2 sen's worth.