I will apologise in advance for what might be a particularly candid entry in the TER content canon, but I feel I probably should follow up on something Watch-Crunchy… but not via the platform as it really would not be their sort of thing.
I “reviewed” an adventure watch recently, but it was more to wind up many of my colleagues, and to horrify them with my unpredictability. I am the horological equivalent of a bucking bronco; you just have to hold on for dear life.
The watch in question was a Luminox Commando Raider, in green. If you must know I scored the watch at 2.2/5.0, as objectively as I could across pre-determined categories outside my control, because for a £589 watch at RRP it represents terrible value for money. I also picked it up at an outlet store, brand new, for £199.99, so whilst that makes it slightly better value for what one receives, it still probably is not enough for me to tell you that you should buy one.
I praised the lightness of the watch, the wear, the boldness of colour in both dial and detail (because nuclear green is the most palatable of the radioactive colours – naturally). I criticised pretty much everything else, again when considering the actual RRP if you were to buy one at that moment in time. A Ronda 515 quartz GMT movement inside a CARBONOX housing, with minimal tritium tubes (which Luninox are supposed to be good at, and known for), does not a £589 watch make.
Whilst it is not as egregious as a Ressence Type 3 running off a standard ETA, it really feels like there is a good £200-300 of BS slammed on top of a basic quartz watch that you could buy for £100-150 and not feel too bad about. For an adventure watch, surely there could be more to offer to make the watch a better adventure companion (solar power, kinetic power, another complication, Bluetooth, more lume…), but I’m not entirely sure. Luninox even asked Bear Grylls to design them a range of watches, and he added some Hallmark-esque words of encouragement, but I would not pay an additional £200 for some of those either, not when my cat and a scrabble bag could eventually carry out the same task for the reasonable price of a scoop of cat biscuits and special access rights to the neighbours fish pond.
It did get me wondering though… am I being unfair to the watch? It was not designed to adorn the wrist of a middle-manager who will never make it to the top of the management pyramid, it is designed for the great outdoors, to be worn by adventurers, with hairy chests and nerves of steel.
Lucky then, that I am such a man.
The wife and I like to travel, and when we do, it is usually off the beaten trail. It is something that we have done regularly for the last 15 years. We often volunteer at nature projects at various weird and wonderful places, and our travels have seen us hit +/- 40*C at alarming regularity, even within the same trip. I have fought with man and beast, the elements, and the new normal that is International travel back to the UK from Europe now that Brexit is a thing. I am an adventurer (or an arsehole with a passport – Ed).
The usual watchy-people will already be asking “Christopher, what graces your wrist when you undertake these sojourns?” Well, for nearly 15 years it is this:
This is a Talis Skin Diver from the 1960s, with an ETA 2472. This watch has been with me on every trip. It started with numerous Arctic excursions (Iceland, Finland, Norway/Russia, Sweden, Greenland, Canada), and it’s gone into the depths of numerous rainforests and up various mountains. It has earned the nickname of the ‘Ice Queen’. -35 to +40*C, she has kept decent time and kept up. She struggles with the humidity, but so do I. She has survived animal attack, trips, falls, submersion. She has seen Northern Lights and Solar Eclipses, and I love her.
Around seven years ago, I relented, and I bought a Casio G-Shock Gulfmaster in Gatwick Airport duty free, as an insurance policy. Conscious that I might come a cropper with the Talis eventually (although she had been running fine since an incident in the jungle where the humidity was too much for her to bear), I decided it would be prudent to obtain something that was designed for hardier missions:
Honestly, I have never gelled with the Gulfmaster. The solar power charging seems to take forever, the radio control is sporadic (at best – even in London and we have GMT ffs), and none of the functions really seem to work properly. I can guarantee it is only ever telling me the temperature of my own wrist. The altimeter is absolute nonsense as it gets confused with up and down (which one would assume is critical here). The barometer might as well be a slot machine. The tide display might be correct, but not for wherever I travel, and do not get me started on the second city / world time function, because wherever I go, it never relates. The alarm is also annoying.
So… this does bring me back around to the Luminox. I am currently writing this post from a project in Costa Rica, where this watch has been a faithful companion for the last 3 weeks, and will continue to for a while. This is the first trip I have not taken the Talis on, and the Casio is in a bag as a backup, so there is a lot to live up to.
So…
I praised the wear – I will continue to praise the wear. It is very light, and the rubber strap is comfortable. Whilst the rubber might not be the most breathable of materials it is definitely the most suitable in terms of cleaning and maintenance. The temperature has remained at an average of 28*C, and the humidity is constantly over 80%, so I have sweated almost my entire body weight before 08:00 hours, and the watch seems to be coping. I have baked, boiled, drowned, smashed, dropped and battered this watch, and it still works. The CARBONOX seems capable of withstanding a lot of damage, and the sapphire crystal is definitely holding its own. Sand does not phase the watch, I have been shoulder deep in nests and troughs (for science) and constant burying and coating in silicate particles seems to not cause any issues. Saltwater too… no issues. I have swum, dived, and washed in it, and it still ticks. If I used it Bond-style on a poacher, it would probably survive. I am not trying it against a machete – be reasonable. Sturdy, but not in the way; that is what you need in a watch in this sort of environment. I have a noticeable tan line behind the watch because of the size, but that is not a complaint to be levelled at the watch.
The clasp, being the only part of the watch that is not CARBONOX or rubber, is a scratch magnet. What did I expect? I am unfazed as well… it is a clasp, if it still works then it is doing its job. There will be no wringing of hands here.
The movement has kept ticking, so perhaps I might have been too harsh initially. It keeps time, both standard and the GMT, and that is all you need. I do think at £589 it is too much to ask one to fork out on a bottom-of-the-line quartz movement, but at £199.99 it is good enough, if a little steep. The Casio has solar and R/C, the Talis is an automatic with a date complication (solid ETA), and each of those was cheaper at RRP. You then probably could argue about the additional modifications that the Luninox brings to the table in terms of lume and materials, but both watches do give it a run for the money in terms of cost vs package. If this was a true adventure watch, perhaps we should see something along the lines of solar powered movement, especially at £589 – is this just me? Is just a simple battery-powered quartz movement enough? I do not have the answer here… it is stumping me as to why I am struggling to rationalise my feelings.
I did criticise the lume and the tritium: honest question boys and girls, is this enough?
No gimmicks or filters – that is the watch at around 20:40 Costa Rican time. It is pitch black in the sticks, I was trying to sleep (04:00 start that day for a poacher patrol on the beach), and that was the view on my wrist.
Two minutes later, zoomed out, that was the other shot. It is not great is it. I do not know whether I am being unfair, or my expectations are too high, but surely I deserve more, especially at £589? I feel I deserve more at £199.99! I appreciate that I do not want too much for fear of being sniped by the enemy, and that it is a watch and not a torch, but this is a company who pride themselves on their lume – it is in the name ffs. It is legible, but it is not impressive. The non-tritium lume is awful, it barely gets anything from constant exposure to the sun, and at nine degrees from the Equator I might as well be touching distance from it – I got sunburnt at 07:00 whilst cleaning the beach of leftover fishing nets with a machete, why can’t my watch glow in the dark like it is supposed to?
There are cheaper Luminox models with double the lume, so why does the Commando Raider get the square root of fuck all? Is it because I am supposed to be covert? Then this is a covert watch, not an adventure watch. I want the adventurer upgrade please? Oh wait – the Bear Grylls one has loads of tubes, what the hell… Am I being unreasonable? I want to be pragmatic, but I am struggling to rationalise. Am I supposed to adventure in the dark? I ate my carrots as a child, but I am older now with macular degeneration and a failing back, am I doomed to die in a foreign land because I cannot see my GMT hand? Why Luminox, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME!? Bury me facing the Duty Free, I want to grab a bargain on my way to the Afterlife.
What about better options for lume? The Talis is straight up normal lume, but has been re-applied in the past, so does glisten away like a shiny new pearl, but it is not the best option. The Gulfmaster has a backlight but it is a LED on a timer, and is not brilliant. I have never really rated Casio backlights anyway… a gripe for another time. Maybe a Timex with an IndiGlo nightlight, or maybe even a NaviXL could be much better equipped in this instance as an adventure watch? I am writing this now wishing I bought one of those Eco ones for a similar amount of money, and maybe I would be enjoying myself a bit more. Plus it could tell me the tide… although I have a chart and eyes for that. I digress…
So, is this Luminox really an adventure watch? It is more so today than, say, an Explorer or the new Hamilton Khaki Expedition. I often wonder why anyone would take a steel sports watch worth over $1000 dollars into an environment like this unless you were being sponsored by them, or if you have an aversion to money. In the 1940s and 1950s Rolex would throw Oyster Perpetuals at you if you even hinted you might climb Mount Everest, such was the desire to get their beloved mechanicals up there… I am just fucking about in Costa Rica, no watch company is going to sponsor that shit.
Anyway, from a toughness perspective, this is a sturdy watch that can take an absolute pounding (except the clasp). From a wearability perspective, it is lightweight and comfortable, and provided you cut the rubber strap to size properly, will fit you well without issue. Unfortunately, for the Commando Raider, that is where the praise stops and the caveats come in… hard.
For £589 RRP – walk away.
If you see it cheaper, you then need to factor in how much of a compromise the movement and the lack of lume is worth to you. At £199.99, I have had a functional companion on this odyssey, which has not been replaced by any of my usual companions. It is not an upgrade, by any stretch of the imagination, for a variety of reasons (sentimental or otherwise), and as I write this sentence I have already a list of three Timex watches I feel would have made equal or better companions, and I am also left ruminating that maybe a cheaper model of Luminox would have actually offered me as much of a package for less cash, even at outlet prices. However, this watch is as part of the trip as some of the memories made… it was bought for this trip, it survives, it is still attached to my wrist as I mercilessly rip it a new arsehole, and will no doubt double as a fly-swat tomorrow like it has done for the last three weeks. It is my new adventure watch, and I know my wife will not let me buy another one for a long time.
Would I still not recommend this watch? I would not. (Sorry Luminox, it is just not worth £589 RRP, and it is ok at £199.99).
Would I change my score? No, but you have to realise, I really did use this watch for its intended purpose, and you should bear that in mind. Who else would review a watch in exactly the way it should be used? How many Black Bay reviewers have actually dived with theirs?
With that… back in the sea I go.
Specs:
46mm CARBONOX case with 316L stainless steel screw in back. 14mm thickness. Screw in, double security gasket, crown protected.
CARBONOX bezel, unidirectional, with compass markings.
Ronda 515 GMT quartz movement.
Sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating.
200m water resistance.
25 year, 24/7 illumination.
24mm lug width, and genuine rubber strap .
90g in weight.
Swiss Made.
Comprehensively CO2 neutral watch and brand, scopes 1,2,3 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
Link to the watch if you want to check it out:
https://uk.luminox.com/products/commando-raider-46-mm-outdoor-adventure-3337
If you are interested, the original WatchCrunch “review” is here:
https://www.watchcrunch.com/Porthole/reviews/luminox-commando-raider-xl-3337-review-213207
If you don’t wish to read it, I will summarise for you:
2/5 – Quality
2/5 – Dial
1/5 – Movement
4/5 – Wearability
2/5 – Design
Overall: 2.2/5.0
Would I recommend this watch? No.
Like:
- Lightweight, and therefore comfortable to wear
- Bold – if that’s your thing
- Very hard-wearing, does the job
Don’t like:
- Price – far too expensive considering what you are getting
- Light on lume, especially for a Luminox
- Possibly at the limit of acceptability and comfort in terms of colour
- Compass point of bezel constantly catching on clothing or other things. Click click f**k
- CARBONOX bezel feels cheap and plastic
- Lume is not amazing… even in the quantity you get
- Ronda 515 movement is pretty much bottom of the barrel in terms of price and quality. It functions, but…
- GMT hours on inner bezel/wall hard to read
The Escapement Room 