Opinion: The Seiko Baby Alpinists make me mad. (SPB155, SPB157, SPB159)
It’s official, Seiko has recently announced the bezel-less Baby Alpinists (SPB155, SPB157, SPB159). These promise to be a hit with the fan base, but honestly, it makes me mad. Here’s a quick look at the specs:
- Diameter: 38 mm
- Thickness: 12.9 mm
- Lug Width: 20 mm
- Lug-to-Lug: 46 mm
- Movement: 6R35 (automatic, hacking and hand-winding)
- Water Resistance: 200 m
- Crystal: Sapphire
- Price: $700 — $725
Compared to traditional Alpinists (SARB017, SPB121, SPB119, SPB121) the omission of the internal compass bezel presents a cleaner dial, and the removal of the additional crown at 4 o’clock and crown guards have reduced the case size. The Baby Alpinists come in a fan-favourite 38 mm and with a lug-to-lug of 46 mm, it promises to be a wearable watch for a large variety of wrist sizes.
The other notable differences are that the Baby Alpinists have a domed sapphire crystal, the tip on the seconds hand has a splash of red, absence of a date cyclops, a gradient dial design and the numerals/indices are printed.
Upon closer inspection, you can see that there is a sand-like texture on the dial and that the colour transitions from the middle outwards to a black border. Of the three models, I’m partial to the green SPB155 — I think this fits the gold hands and sand-coloured numerals/indices the best. But this is also the point that gets me mad.
Although printed in a faux-patina colour, the numerals/indices are not lumed. This means that the only lume on the dial are the tiny round plots on the minute track, and the uniformity of these tiny round lume plots result in a lack of orientation in the dark. If you weren’t wearing the watch in a dark environment, trying to tell which side is up would require some guesswork. This was one of my complaints of the previous Alpinists — as a watch rooted in mountaineering and adventure, you’d think there would be greater emphasis on legibility in all conditions. The new baby Alpinists with printed numerals/indices presented an excellent opportunity for Seiko to rectify this — early pictures of these with faux-patina coloured numerals even got me excited but alas, I’m left disappointed.
Another niggle I have with this new release is the colour combination on the dial. Take the green SPB155, you get sand printed numerals/indices with gold applied Seiko logo and hands set, but the printed Prospex logo and text at the bottom are in white. In the grey SPB159, you get sand printed numerals/indices, the Prospex brand and text, while the applied Seiko logo and hands set are finished in silver. This just seems uncoordinated to me and I would have preferred to keep all elements in the same colour due to the rather dynamic dial.
Don’t get me wrong, the baby Alpinists are great watches. I just feel that Seiko missed a great opportunity to make these even better with some simple tweaks. At the end of the day, these 2 issues jump out at me whenever I look at the watch and unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to get past it.
