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  • I Review A Watch: The Nodus Sector Deep Makes No Compromises When It Comes To Build Quality

I Review A Watch: The Nodus Sector Deep Makes No Compromises When It Comes To Build Quality

You'll be hard pressed to find a better watch at this price point

Hey friends, if you’re reading this you are part of the Watch Club and get to read reviews a week in advance. This week, a watch that’s a great bargain.

Full disclosure notice: I have no financial links with Nodus and no money was exchanged for this review. The folks over at Nodus paid to ship the watch to me and back, and that's that. All the views in the review are my own.

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There are several ways to approach a watch review. The first, and easiest, would be to inform the reader of all the qualities and downsides of a watch you are reviewing. You can list all the tech states, try to convey your impressions, and round it all out with a short ‘buy-it-or-not’ recommendation. I like these reviews, mostly because they can give you the basic information as quickly as possible. The second, however, tells a bit of a broader story. I usually prefer writing these as I believe there are plenty more qualified people out there to give you the facts straight up. I prefer them because you often need to tell a broader story, more than just the stats and a quick wear. This requires you to live with the watch for a bit. And a watch like the Nodus Sector Deep that I just had in for review is exactly the watch that requires a broader story.

You see, if you list the stats of the Nodus Sector Deep, you would see a good watch. A matte stainless steel case, 42mm wide, 13.6mm thick, and with a 47mm lug-to-lug, a humble Seiko NH35, and 500 meters of water resistance all add up to great specs. But the Nodus Sector Deep, just like any other Nodus as a matter of fact, is way more than a sum of its parts. That’s because Nodus is not exactly a traditional watchmaker. The brand was established in 2017 in Los Angeles, and if you check their website, you’ll see that their intention isn’t to be a watch brand. Instead, they are a “watch research and design company”. And you can see it in their watches. Everything about their watches is intentional, thought out, and based on iteration. And community. But more on that later.

Let’s do the basics first. On paper, this doesn’t sound like a large watch. Technically, it only measures 42mm on top, where the bezel is. The true dimensions of the watch are 38mm wide, 13.6mm thick, and with the 47mm lug-to-lug. So this tells you how aggressive the bezel is, being 4mm wider than the rest of the case. It’s also black DLC coated, with super sharp teeth on the edge for easy turning. And when you twist the bezel, you get to the first example why Nodus watches are more than the sum of their parts and why the company is considered a “watch research and design company”. It’s a fairly traditional 120-click unidirectional bezel, but only on paper. Instead of using click springs, Nodus uses ball bearings. You don’t get such a smooth operation even on watches multiple times the price. It glides unlike any other bezel, while remaining incredibly firm and with no backplay. There are so many brands that could learn from this example. The bezel also has a dual function, with two lumed scales printed on it — a 60-minute on the outside and a 24-hour scale on the inner ring.

Back to the case. If you haven’t had experience with Nodus watches, it might not mean anything at all, but this watch is part of the Sector collection. This is Nodus’ pretty cool collection that uses the exact same case, but equips it for different applications — a diver, a pilot’s watch, a field watch… And what they managed to do with each version is make it look completely unique, despite having the same case. And you’ll recognize the case by its chunky angular lugs and rounded profile. The case has a sandblasted finish, which gives the case a slightly anthracite color. And it seems like it will be able to stand up to a lot of abuse. AS it should, since water resistance is rated at 500 meters. You can get the Sector Deep with two crown setups — on the left or the right. The one I had was the destro configuration, meaning it had the crown on the left. But it almost doesn’t matter, as the configurations can be switched up to make it easier for right- or left-handed people to operate and wear the watch. I say it doesn’t matter because the bezel on top is so proud over the case that it’s actually very difficult to get to the crown. It’s a screw-down crown, so unscrewing it can be a chore, despite the very serrated finish to it. I’ll just go ahead and spoil the rest of this review — this might be the only thing that’s a negative with the watch. However, I don’t expect it to be like this forever.

You see, Nodus has this crazy thing about iterations. If you get a Sector Deep right now and look up photos in older reviews, you might notice a difference here or there. That’s because Nodus will constantly improve its watches with every batch of releases. The entire collection is an ever-evolving organism that adapts to the needs and wants of buyers and the production capabilities of Nodus and its partners. And this is one of the more important aspects of Nodus and why it’s such a great brand. It’s actually a community. That sounds incredibly corny, but I don’t know of a single brand that is so well connected with its customers, listening to their every need. And in response, Nodus has built a cult following among the independent brands (it would be very wrong to call them a micro-brand) that has people coming back again and again to buy more and more watches. Very cool.

Moving on, on top is a flat sapphire crystal that protrudes from the bezel ever so slightly. But underneath it is something else that is well made and slightly familiar. The dial. It’s incredibly deep, and not in a painted kind of way. It’s actually set in super deep, much deeper than you would expect. There’s a sloping chapter ring with huge recesses cut into it to house the hour markers. Oh, those hour markers. The dial comes in black, dark blue, yellow, or baby blue, all of which are perfect bases for the stark white square lume on the markers. For extra dimension, the markers have a black outline, just like the hands that are filled with the same lume.

More Nodus ingenuity can be found on the bracelet. Everything about it makes it a delight to use. It’s a three-link steel bracelet with the same finish as the case. It has the expected quick-release mechanism, which you will want to use because the watch really likes to be worn on a variety of straps — from leathers (yeah, on a diver) to a chunky NATO strap. But the most special part of the bracelet is, of course, the clasp. It has two security push buttons on the side and a very special NodeX tool-less micro-adjust mechanism. Push a button, and you can adjust the size of the bracelet super quickly. Nodus developed this mechanism in-house and now licenses it to other brands. It’s such a good way of adjusting the bracelet that a much, much larger brand, one known for copying from other brands, has completely replicated the NodeX without paying Nodus a cent. The perfect complement, one would say.

More ingenuity can be found inside. Nodus uses the NH35 movement, a budget offering from Seiko. It’s an OK movement, one that should be easy and convenient to service. It beats at 3Hz and has a decent 41-hour power reserve. Its major downside is its accuracy. It’s horrible out of the box. Seiko claims it should be accurate to -20~+40 seconds per day, bad even though Seiko often overshoots on their estimates. So, why would Nodus make such a nice watch and then give it just a mediocre movement? Well, because the backbone of the movement is great. And Nodus does a bit of its magic to it to regulate it to +/- 10 seconds per day.

Wearing the watch is an interesting experience. There’s no getting around the fact that it’s a large watch. Despite the measurements that are very reasonable, the watch seems top-heavy due to the fact that it has such a large bezel. And that’s even on my fat 8-inch wrists. I’m not complaining about it, don’t get me wrong. While I fully acknowledge that the shift towards smaller watches is interesting, we should also consider the use case. A 44mm dress watch makes as much sense as a 34mm sports watch. So, I don’t mind a huge sports watch, and this is one. It’s not unwieldy, just large. Aside from that, it fits perfectly.

But more importantly, there’s the build quality. On watches that come in at five times the price of this, one could find something to complain about — a lack of finishing or a blemish. This seems pretty perfect. The finishing quality on this watch is exquisite. Also, the lume is wild. I’ve had very few watches glow this good. Since I had this watch in the winter months, when it gets dark early in the day, this watch was the star of the playground. Every day after kindergarten, I would take my daughter to the nearby park where all the kids waited for it to get dark and then hounded me to charge up the lume so they could look at it. They went crazy for it. And a watch that can keep hyper kindergarten-age kids calm for even a few minutes is a good watch. Thanks for that, Nodus.

So, with all that in mind, the $599 price tag just seems ridiculously low. I can’t think of many better deals for a super-capable diver. See more on the Nodus website.

-Vuk

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