SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Aquaracer Quartz 'Night Diver' Watch

 

WAY108A.FT6141

Way back at Baselworld 2018 (when Baselworld was still a thing), TAG Heuer launched their first 'full-lume' dial in quite some time. This created a little bit of a stir since full-lume dials are always popular (not least because Pierce Brosnan wore a full-lume TAG Heuer in one of his James Bond films), but while the piece is still in the range (or is it?*) it definitely seems to have spent the last three years flying somewhat under the radar. 

*Curiously if you go to the TAG Heuer website and search Aquaracers, this is not one of the 55 models that comes up, and yet if you search for WAY108A it is still there and still on sale priced at £1850.

This largely seems to be a by-product of the fact that the watch is powered by a quartz movement, rather than the Calibre 5 and as such it does seem a little expensive. Sure the black PVD case adds to the cost, and the full lume dial too, but for £50 less you could pick up a steel case quartz chronograph (CAY1110), or for £200 more a steel Calibre 5... both of which come on bracelets.

But leaving that aside, it's quite a cool looking watch. I tried one on back in May of the year the watch was released and I must admit at the time I came away a little bit underwhelmed. Despite that I still look at it now and again and wonder if I should give it another try. I recall my main 'issue' with the watch was that the dial wasn't as 'white' as I was hoping. If I remember correctly it was more of a silvery white which I thought detracted from the monochrome aesthetic. Knowing that now I think I would approach it differently, so it would definitely be interesting to see it again.

You can't fail to love the dial though, even if it isn't quite the colour I was expecting. Most of us watch enthusiasts are pushovers when it comes to luminescence on a watch face and this one certainly delivers on that front with the (green lume) dial further accentuated by (blue) lume on the 12, 6 and 9 markers and the hands. Furthermore the bezel also has a healthy application of lume, which is still quite a rarity on a TAG Heuer timepiece...

I distinctly remember someone asking on the Calibre 11 forum whether they could buy this watch and fit a Calibre 5 movement into it, which seems a bit of a drastic course of action to me, but it just goes to show that some people really don't like quartz. I've no idea whether that's possible, but I suspect not since quartz cases are generally thinner than automatic ones, but maybe TAG Heuer will see fit to remake this in an automatic variant in the new Aquaracer at some point?

Until then, I think this still has plenty to recommend it, especially if you can pick it up somewhere at a bit of a discount...