Seiko is well known for watches, and their Prospex line (short for professional specifications) are their sports watches designed to meet useable standards. The SRPH57 is one of three U.S. Special Edition watches Seiko has done with a turtle theme to raise awareness for the Oceanic Society. A fitting choice given the cushion case design employed has long been nicknamed the turtle unofficially by collectors.

Diameter: 45mm

Lug-to-lug: 47.5mm

Thickness: 13.2mm

Lug width is: 22mm

The watch has 200 meters of water resistance.

This reference falls under what unofficially has been known as a King Turtle. It adhere to the traditional cushion case of the turtles, but King Turtles are designated as such because of the use of a sapphire crystal and the bezel insert being made out of ceramic. The bezel has markings for each minute, and has a 120-click unidirectional rotation. The feel of this bezel is smooth but quiet; I find the sound less pronounced than any other diver I’ve owned. Back to the crystal, I will note most King Turtles have a cyclops for the date/date but thankfully this reference dropped that addition, making for an overall cleaner external look.

The dial color of the SRPH57 might best be described as teal. It’s a gradient shading, being the most teal at the center and darkening the closer to the watch edge you get. There is an overlaid turtle-shell pattern on the dial which on this reference is fairly subtle but does offer up some unique light play. The indices are applied and well-lumed with polished edges. The hour and minute hands are the sword-and-arrow format and are also well lumed. There is a lume marking on the back portion of the central seconds hand, and at the 3 o’clock position is a day and date. A quite interesting choice by Seiko is to offer, in a U.S. only watch, the date in both Kanji and English.

As for the rest of the dial, Seiko appears just below the 12 o’clock indice, and above the 6 o’clock indice is the Prospex logo, followed by Automatic, followed by Diver’s 200m. Beneath the 6 o’clock indice is the movement information.

Back to the lume, in addition to the dial there is a lume pip in the bezel insert. Seiko uses its LumiBrite lume for this watch and the results are impressive.

The watch case is made out of stainless steel, as is the bracelet. This watch also comes with a silicone band and the drilled lugs in the case make swapping easy. The watch, and bracelet, feature a mixture of polished and brushed surfaces. The crown for the watch is not in the typical location, instead opting for a 4 o’clock placement and is unsigned.

The crown offers four positions. In position 0 the crown is screwed down and the watch has its 200m of water resistance. In position 1 the watch can be hand-wound. In position 2 you can turn the crown clockwise to adjust the day (alternating between the English and Kanji versions) and turning the crown counter-clockwise adjusts the date. In position three the watch hacks and the time can be set.

Flipping the watch over you can see another the watch has a closed caseback. This caseback is quite busy, featuring the tsunami logo in the center (something Seiko likes to place on its ISO rated dive watches), a picture of a sea turtle, and a host of watch details. The watch is powered by the 4R36 caliber movement. This is an automatic, an in-house movement by Seiko that beats at 3 Hz, has 24 jewels, and offers approximately 41 hours of power reserve.

Putting this watch on my timegrapher, I get an average across all six positions of +9.8 seconds per day. The range of readings was 0 seconds per day to +18 seconds per day, within the movement’s accuracy rating of -35 to +45 seconds per day.

[Put on watch to show, mention 6.75” wrist size; also provide outside lighting wrist shot on the bracelet and on the strap]

So, what are my overall thoughts on this watch?

The positives:

• Well wearing for a dive watch of this size

• Nice bezel action

• Interesting dial

• Great silicone band

The negatives:

• Low-grade movement

• Bracelet is meh

Seiko listed this watch at $750. You could pretty readily find the SRPH57 in new condition at under $600, taxes included, when I recorded my video review. Some other references (there are a total of three that offer different dial colors) seem to trade for even less.

I really only have two gripes with this watch. The first is the bracelet. Sizing was a nightmare; I’ve never been a fan of pin and collar systems since I find reinstalling the pins fairly frustrating. That said, in theory you’d only need to go through that experience one time. But even after that, the bracelet just isn’t that great. Yes, I’d say it’s better than my bracelet experience with Orient, and this one does offer some decent micro-adjust options, and it feels solid enough, it just isn’t stellar. But, this isn’t really a big deal because the watch also comes with one of those accordion style silicone Seiko straps (that you saw in some of the wrist shot footage I supplied. The silicone strap is awesome, I really like how it feels. So I say wear the bracelet if you want to dress the watch up some, and wear the silicone if you want it to be comfortable.

The other gripe is the movement. Given the price-point I’m not surprised this came with a 4R36 but I just think the King Turtle style watches should probably have a 6R in them, not the movement that proliferates the Seiko 5 line. It’s a trusty movement, robust, just not great accuracy. But well within expectations for the price-point. It’s just the watch exceeds in so many other ways I’m a bit disappointed it didn’t go for more on the movement front.

All the rest of this watch is a positive for me. I should note this is my first Seiko watch (true Seiko, not counting other brands they operate). The bezel feels great. Very easy to grip and turn. The lume really surprised me at how quality it was. The dial is a very interesting mix of textures and color changes, which at this price-point I’m surprised at the complexity it provides. And you’d think a watch officially listed at 45mm would be hard to wear for someone with under a 7” wrist but the short lug-to-lug makes this quite a wearable diver. It feels less top heavy and chunky than other dive watches I’ve tried, and while it isn’t a slim watch by any means I’ve found it slides fairly well under long-sleeves.