EMG/HKED Nemo Diver Review

Manufacturer: EMG Watches | Price: $450 USD (£345 GBP, €400 EUR approx)

Introducing the EMG/HKED Nemo Diver. A vintage style automatic diver’s watch. The Nemo brings together high quality components, great build quality and a classic vintage style from the 1960’s. Available in six different colour options.

Specifications

Dimensions: Case Diameter – 40mm, Thickness – 13.5mm, Lug to Lug – 47mm, Lug Width – 20mm (Drilled Lugs)
Movement: Miyota 90S5 Automatic, Hackable & Self Winding
Case Material: Brushed 316L Stainless Steel with Polished Sides
Weight: 150g on Bracelet Extras: Watch Roll
Bracelet: Beads of Rice
Crystal: Domed Sapphire, AR Coating
Bezel: 120 Click Unidirectional, Ceramic, Lumed
Water Resistance: 20ATM / 200m / 660ft
Lume: Super Luminova C3 X1
Crown: Screw Down Caseback: Screw Down Stainless Steel
Warranty: 2 Years Where to Buy: emgwatches.com
Options: Dial Colour – Black / Denim Blue / Green / Powder Blue / White / Yellow

Delivery & Packaging

Delivery of the Nemo took 5 days to arrive in the UK from Hong Kong. EMG offer free worldwide shipping with all their watches. The packaging is simple yet very useful. A cylinder cardboard tube with the HKED and Nemo logo holds a very nice watch roll capable of holding 5 watches. Inside is the watch and that’s it. No extra’s, not even a warranty card. Either way, your invoice is proof and confirms the date of your purchase for any warranty purposes.

The Case

The Nemo is a watch that sits right in the sweet-spot of 40mm with a lug to lug distance of 47mm which will fit a wide variety of wrist sizes. The case is a mixture of brushed and polished surfaces with just the sides polished and everywhere else brushed. The case back is a solid screw down affair with the specs and a giant squid engraved into it. The entire case is made of 316L stainless steel and with the lugs being drilled making the Nemo a strap monster!

The finishing of the Nemo is superb although I would have preferred if it was brushed everywhere with small polished accents for a more tool-like aesthetic as I’ve always thought too much polished areas will just mean more scratches after a couple of years of ownership. It isn’t too much though as when you look directly at the watch when on wrist you can’t see any of the polishing. It does however, perfectly match the included beads of rice bracelet.

Bracelet

The Nemo comes equipped with a beads of rice style stainless-steel bracelet. It is very nicely made with solid end links and flexible 7 part links. The finishing on the bracelet is brushed outer links with polished centre beads. The bracelet tapers from 20mm at the lugs to 18mm at the clasp. The thickness of the bracelet is 3.5mm. The clasp itself is a nice solid milled example. The whole bracelet is of very good quality. Sized up for my 7-inch wrist I had to remove 5 links, which was easy enough to do with the screw pins for adjusting / re-sizing. I am not however a fan of beads of rice bracelets and at the first available opportunity I replaced it with a spare tropic strap I had sitting in my desk drawer. Don’t worry though, if you do like beads of rice bracelets, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen.

Movement

The chosen movement is the 90S5, a non-date version of the highly popular 9015 from Miyota. The 90S5 is a Japanese made 28,800vph 24 jewel movement. Checking the accuracy after running the Nemo for a few days, both on wrist and in my winder, I was rather surprised with it showing an average of +1 second per day. I’m not sure if my sample was regulated or not by EMG before shipping, or whether I was just lucky. Either way, I was extremely impressed and is actually the most accurate watch I have tested to date.

Dial & Bezel

This version of the Nemo has a 120 click unidirectional bezel with a matt ceramic lumed insert. It is of fantastic quality with everything lining up perfectly. The bezel action is absolutely rock solid with zero back-play. The dial has very neatly applied indices with heaps of lume as do the minute and hour hands. The text and applied HKED logo are all very neatly done. I have stared at the dial & bezel for a long time since getting the watch just to see if I can spot any discrepancies. Simply put, there are none.

Conclusion

An absolutely fantastic watch that ticks a lot of check boxes. The only things I would change is brushed finish on the sides of the case and I wouldn’t bother supplying the watch with the beads of rice bracelet. I’d hope this would bring the Nemo’s price down to around $400 which I think would be a far more promising and great value deal.

Remember guys, this is just the opinion of one man, me, and I’m sure there are a lot of you out there that love the beads of rice bracelet. A “Marmite” item as they say. But I guess that’s why you’re here, to read my opinion. All in all, The EMG/HKED Nemo is a fantastic watch and a definite “keeper”.

 9/10

9/10 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Thanks very much to Derek from EMG Watches for the excellent customer service. It was a pleasure and I hope to deal with you again soon.

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EMG/HKEd Nemo Diver