[Video] Review: the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver

When I write reviews, I find myself bucketing watches into two distinct categories. The first of these is home to watches that feel like they’re meant for a different version of me, if not a different collector altogether. These are the watches that, whether I love them or not, I’d be hard-pressed to really see as part of my day-to-day life — at least as my life exists now.

The other bucket is where watches like the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver live. This is the bucket for the watches that seem to hit right in my wheelhouse — the watches that seem like they were purpose-built to appeal to me (and possibly to my wallet). The minute I saw the press release for the Defy Extreme Diver, I knew it sat in this second bucket, and I knew I needed to spend some time with it, if not for a review, then certainly to consider whether this watch was one I needed in my life.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait all too long, and after a couple of weeks with the Defy Extreme Diver on my wrist I can easily confirm what at first I only suspected — it is very, very good.

There’s an inherent irony that comes along with the very concept of a luxury tool watch. The tension between building a rugged tool watch ready to tackle the world’s most demanding environments and building a high-end luxury product is palpable. To make a watch that straddles those two worlds without looking too much like a Submariner is even harder. 

With the Defy Extreme Diver, Zenith has managed to make something that feels like the logical conclusion to several paths we’ve seen start to converge over the last few years, while simultaneously plugging what has been a clear hole in their catalog — a complete and utter lack of dive watches. Despite that, the introduction of the Defy Extreme Diver feels like such a natural extension of what Zenith has been up to that you would be forgiven for thinking it already existed.

Why a Zenith Dive Watch?

As I just mentioned, one of the big holes in the Zenith catalog over the last several years has been dive watches. In an interesting way, dive watches have sort of become the center of the watch industry over the last few decades, and they are a grounding point for so many enthusiasts. I think this is for a few reasons, but the biggest piece of the puzzle — at least to my eye — is that a dive watch offers collectors an appealing mix of features without a lot of the technical complexity (and corresponding price tag) that come with most complications.

Even today, when it feels like the prices of watches are continually rising, you can get a truly capable and well-built dive watch for just a couple hundred bucks, if not less. This accessibility means that I know more enthusiasts who have gotten into watches through divers than any other style on the market. And once you get a taste for the genuine functionality and everyday practicality of a good dive watch, it’s hard to forget.

Zenith isn’t necessarily the first brand you think of when it comes to dive watches. Over the decades, they’ve produced a decent stable of dive watch options, but I don’t think it would be much of a stretch to argue that Zenith’s home base is (and pretty much always has been) the chronograph. Discounting the importance of the El Primero to Zenith would be somewhat akin to ignoring the connection between Rolex and the Oyster Case, or Leica and the M Mount. You just can’t do it.

But Zenith has also become somewhat of a paragon of modern sports watches. Their chronographs easily and comfortably sit at the front of the pack, and their everyday sports watches — like the Defy Skyline or their recently resurrected Pilot line — have become collecting staples. And I don’t just say that as someone trying to make a point. Start going to collector events and meetups, and you’re sure to see Zeniths all around. With all that in mind, it was beyond an inevitability that Zenith would look to introduce a new dive watch to their catalog.

Old Vs. New: A Tale of Two Zeniths

Zenith has been enjoying somewhat of a dual identity the last few years, drawing as much praise for their contemporary collection as for their strong run of historical re-issues. Of course, this in and of itself isn’t hugely unique — plenty of brands are making a mint these days by resurrecting vintage designs. But where most brands are scouring their archives for anything that carries a whiff of Genta or a shred of Submariner, Zenith has tended to fall back on the wild and wonderful, resurrecting quirky chronographs in small sizes without shying away from unique architectures and ladder bracelets.

So it wasn’t too much of a shock that, in returning to the world of dive watches, Zenith would choose not only to introduce an unequivocally modern diver but to offer a revival option as well. The Zenith Defy Revival has, with its 37mm faceted steel case and impressive tech specs, been a clear win among both enthusiasts and the watch media. But honestly? It’s not the one I would go for. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an undeniably cool watch, but when presented with the choice between it and the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver, my heart made a quick and clear decision. In some ways, the two watches are very similar. They each sport interesting angular cases, they’re each decorated with vibrant orange accents, and they are each a clear distillation of one side of Zenith’s current design vocabulary. Beyond those slight similarities (and a shared 600 meters of water resistance), the two watches are completely and utterly different beasts.

A Very Extreme Diver

I’m not a diver. Or at least, I’m not a certified scuba diver. I intend to change that at some point but, at least for now, the deepest water a watch on my wrist is likely to experience is the top few feet of the Atlantic Ocean, or (more likely) the deep end of a swimming pool. All this is to say that I’m not really the guy to evaluate how a watch like the Defy Extreme Diver measures up when diving a reef or a shipwreck in Lake Michigan.

What I can say is that, as a certified wannabe diver who does like getting his watches wet, the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver ticks every box, and I don’t just mean according to the ISO 6425 standard (although it does). A good dive watch — especially an expensive one — needs to be, for lack of a better term, trustworthy. If a brand is asking you to spend a not insignificant chunk of change on what they claim is a functional watch, you need to believe that that watch is going to, well, deliver on that function. After all, no one wants to spend over $10,000 on a dive watch only for it to flood the first time you jump off a dock — or even be anxious that it will.

What I’m saying is that a good dive watch needs to do more than just be capable, a good dive watch needs to visually communicate a certain toughness, a certain brute force capability that tells you the watch is more ready to face the world than you are. It’s this need that helps to explain why the Omega Seamaster Pro and Planet Ocean still cling to their external screw-down helium relief valves and why the broader market still gravitates towards bigger, chunkier dive watches, even if smaller ones would do the trick.

Strapping the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver to your wrist fills you with this kind of confidence. The Defy Extreme Diver feels like someone at Zenith took a Defy Skyline and used the Photoshop blend tool to merge it with a Royal Oak Offshore Diver (with maybe a little bit of Doxa thrown in there for good measure). That’s not to say that it’s derivative — to the contrary, the watch feels uniquely Zenith — but it certainly conveys a similar toughness: A kind of Expendables-style, macho, “I’m ready to go toe-to-toe with Jason Stratham even though I’m almost 80,” Sly Stallone energy. 

Look, there’s a good reason these guys wear massive Offshores and hulking Panerais on their wrists for these roles. Wearing different watches, like putting on different outfits, can help us feel like different versions of ourselves. And whether we’re willing to acknowledge it or not, strapping on watches like the Defy Extreme Diver, a worthy entrant in this genre, helps us feel like badasses — like maybe even we can harness some of that Arnold attitude.

The Defy Extreme Diver on the Wrist

Of course, one of the joys of the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver is that while it might feel big, it’s actually entirely wearable, at least on my 7.5” wrist. The Defy Extreme Diver is only 42.5mm across, with a lug-to-lug that changes depending on which of the interchangeable straps/end links you choose to use at a given time. The watch is thick, at 15.5mm (and obviously more on the included NATO-style strap), but it also should be. 

This isn’t a watch meant to hide under a sleeve, it’s meant to be worn on full display. Besides, the watch is totally proportional, with a layered and dynamic side profile that looks good even when you just catch a glance of it out of the corner of your eye. Any concerns about weight are also mitigated thanks to the Defy Extreme Diver’s Grade 5 Titanium construction. It always surprises me to say this when talking about a titanium watch, but there were moments when wearing the Defy Extreme Diver that I genuinely forgot I had it on, only to turn my wrist over and be pleasantly surprised by its presence.

The Zenith Defy Extreme Diver comes with three strap options, a rubber, a NATO, and a full titanium bracelet. Each of these is well-executed, and the quick change system that allows for on-the-fly interchangeability works about as well as any I’ve encountered, although the curved horns of the connection points took a little getting used to. 

The titanium bracelet is, once properly sized, really comfortable, but I did find myself wishing for some level of quick-adjustment as I moved through the day. The lack of quick-adjust, paired with the quick-change system, meant that I didn’t really wear the Defy Extreme Diver on its bracelet for any extended length of time — if my wrist started to swell or shrink, I would just swap to one of the included straps.

The bracelet was also somewhat stubborn to size on my own, with double-headed screws that demanded multiple screwdrivers and some patience. In a world where micro-brands producing watches under $1000 are consistently turning out watches that are a joy to size, I find myself increasingly running out of sympathy for brands who don’t.

Thankfully, both the textured rubber strap and the woven NATO-style strap were an absolute joy. Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to learn that I spent most of my time with the Defy Extreme Diver wearing it on its excellent NATO strap, mounted on a pair of robust titanium end links. Aside from just really liking the strap itself — seriously, it may be my favorite OEM NATO — I loved the look of the fixed bar lugs that held it in place.

Besides the pain of sizing the bracelet, every other touchpoint of the Defy Extreme Diver lived up to my expectations for Zenith. The 120-click ceramic bezel, which seems to float around the edge of the watch rather than sit on it, was grippy and comfortable to use, with sharp clicks, and good action. The crown, which serves as the only connection the user has to the El Primero Caliber 3620 SC automatic movement sitting in the titanium case, felt solid, with positive action. 

All in all, the Defy Extreme Diver is every bit as high quality as we’ve come to expect from Zenith.

The Matter of the Bill

Which brings us to the ever-so-important question of price. The Defy Extreme Diver, in either color, is not an inexpensive watch. Priced at $11,300, the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver does beg some questions about its retail cost. Specifically, I had a shocking number of friends ask me about its price as it relates to the Rolex Submariner. And while I get the impulse to question the price — $11k is no small amount of money — I do reject the comparison.

The Zenith Defy Extreme Diver is a flagship titanium dive watch from a major Swiss watchmaker, and it lives up to that mantle. Besides, I would argue that, for what you get, the Defy Extreme Diver makes a shockingly good case for itself as a value proposition. From an aesthetic and technical perspective, the closest alternative I can think of to the Defy Extreme Diver is the Royal Oak Offshore Diver, which is priced almost three times higher than the Zenith.

As for Rolex, the closest competitor they offer is the new 42mm titanium Yachtmaster, which comes in almost $3,000 more than the Zenith, if you can even get one. On a practical level, I’m challenged to ever recommend any dive watch more expensive than a Pelagos FXD or 39, but those aren’t the watches the Zenith Defy Extreme Diver was built to compete with. The Defy Extreme Diver is meant to take on the big dogs, to tackle the $10,000+ monsters of the industry, and win. And on that front, it’s an absolute knockout. Zenith