Popular Omega Debuts New Precious Metal Bronze Alloy
One of my favorite things about Omega is that the brand is always tinkering. Always turning knobs, always experimenting. Sometimes in the pursuit of producing longer-lasting products, sometimes it feels like tinkering just for the sake of tinkering. However, since updates are often made in the transition from generation to generation, they are also rarely made without value or at least with the end consumer in mind. 
The result is an amber-colored 9-carat gold watch that uses less than half the amount of solid gold of the comparable 18-carat Seamaster 300. As a result, the fake watch is only slightly heavier relative to its steel counterpart, and definitely lacks that very tactile “oh wow” factor that traditional solid gold divers elicit on the wrist. In a particularly clever twist, the bronze-gold case frames a brown dial that is subtly pre-aged with CuSn8, a more traditional bronze alloy used in many dive watch cases – just not this one.
Omega has wisely retained the visual identity of the 2014 Seamaster 300 – after all, this is the brand’s first truly modern ode to its single most important diving benchmark, launched in 1957. As a result, some of the codes of the model have naturally been retained – the sandwich dial, the straight lugs, the “wide arrow” handset, and the flat bracelet.
Perhaps the biggest visual update to the replica Rolex watch, and the difference from the original material, is the thinner bezel profile – an adjustment that is paired with a reduction in dial text that greatly increases the overall dial opening. And on the two stainless steel versions, the bezel itself is no longer liquid metal, but highly scratch-resistant anodized aluminum – not unlike what we saw in the “No Time to Die” seahorse in late 2019. The bronze-gold variant gets a dark ceramic bezel insert. Finally, and arguably most importantly, the end links of the lugs and bracelet are also back on the drawing board.
It is known to be a slightly thicker movement when it comes to showing up in some of the replica Omega’s larger modern watches, but personally, I prefer the 8900 series over the 8800 series movement because of the extra bit of power reserve and the aforementioned fast setting.