Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver Review

They say never meet your heroes and for watches released in 2024, the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver was that hero watch for me. With my favorite watch collection of all time being the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore limited editions from the 2000s, my tastes for watch design tend to be more on the large and bold side. From a design standpoint Zenith delivered everything I love in watch design with the DEFY Extreme Diver.

Ever since the release of the DEFY Extreme Diver I have been trying wholeheartedly to get Zenith to send us in one for review. Finally at the end of last year I was able to get in contact with the right people at Zenith who put me in touch with their PR firm Gigantem. Gigantem did not have a DEFY Extreme Diver to send us when we first got in touch with them, but they did have a stunning DEFY Skyline in black Ceramic which we reviewed about a month ago.



Right before the end of the year Gigantem informed me that a DEFY Extreme Diver would be coming back in and that they could ship me one to review in a few weeks time. True to their word a few weeks later the blue dial version of the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver showed up. This was truly a watch I couldn't wait to get on my wrist to see if it lived up to what I thought the watch would be.

Before we get into the watch, let's quickly go over the history of Zenith. We did a bit of a deeper dive on the brand in our review of the DEFY Skyline if you'd like to learn a bit more about the brand. Zenith was founded by Georges Favre-Jacot in Le Locle, Switzerland in 1865. Zenith quickly became well known in the industry for being one of the first watch manufactures to vertically integrate watch production. Basically Zenith brought all the needed watchmakers and artisans together under one roof to improve both the speed of production as well as the quality of the final product.



As Zenith started to gain accolades and win industry accuracy awards the name of the company was changed from Georges Favre-Jacot & Cie to Zenith in 1911. Zenith was meant to express the utmost top or peak of something, in this case being watchmaking. In the coming decades Zenith kept producing amazing timepieces all the while continuing to innovate.

1969 brought probably the most important contribution to the watch world by Zenith in the El Primero movement. The El Primero introduced the world to an automatic chronograph movement running at an incredible 5Hz which could time up to a 1/10th of a second. The El Primero is still one of the most respected movements in watchmaking up to this day. Rolex even used the El Primero in its flagship Daytona models for many years.



Zenith was eventually purchased by LVMH in 1999 and is now the groups premiere movement manufacture. Other LVMH brands such as Hublot have even recently started using formidable Zenith calibers in their watches. Zenith being part of LVMH guarantees that Zenith will be allowed to continue to innovate without fear of budgetary constraints that have affected the brand in the past such as during the quartz crisis.

Once the DEFY Extreme Diver arrived, I instantly took the watch off of the bracelet and put it on the blue rubber strap. The strap change system on the DEFY Extreme Diver couldn't be easier, you just depress one button and the strap or bracelet pops right off. You then just click in the new strap or bracelet and that's it. It literally took me 10 seconds to switch from the bracelet to the strap.



The first thing I noticed about the DEFY Extreme Diver was the stunning blue and orange color scheme of the dial. I'm typically not a huge fan of blue dials and personally would have preferred the black variant, but the blue and orange just work so well together on this dial. Zenith also uses their engraved four pointed star motif on the dial which just looks spectacular in person. The bright orange ring around the outside of the dial just brings the dial to life as well.

The next thing I noticed was just how solid the watch felt in hand. I'm a huge fan of titanium watches, with most of my personal watches being crafted out of titanium, so the watch just felt at home in my hands. Unlike some titanium watches the DEFY Extreme Diver has some nice heft to it weighing 120 grams on the rubber strap. It's far from heavy, basically it just feel right. The weight is evenly distributed over the wrist when being worn and feels present without ever being too noticeable or causing any wrist fatigue.



The final thing I noticed about the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver was the beautiful El Primero 3620 CS movement that you can see through the display case back. The caliber uses the Zenith Star for its winding rotor which is nicely skeletonized with the lower half connected to a weight with "Zenith Manufacture" engraved on it. Zenith uses a nice mix of finishes on this high beat movement including perlage, linear graining and beveling.

Now that we've got my initial thoughts of the DEFY Extreme Diver out of the way, let's take a look at the technical specifications of the watch. The watch has a case diameter of 42.5 mm and a lug to lug length of 47.5 mm. The thickest point of the watch measures 16 mm and the watch weighs 120 grams on the rubber strap.



The DEFY Extreme Diver is equipped with a flat sapphire crystal with applied anti-reflective coating. The crystal is slightly raised over the bezel and provides a crystal clear look down to the stunning deep blue dial. As mentioned before the dial has a motif of repeating four pointed stars that are engraved into the dial. This really adds some nice depth to the dial and looks just amazing when the light hits it.

Around the outside of the dial is the bright orange minute track that really adds a nice contrast to the deep blues of the dial, bezel and strap. Zenith uses large applied polished hour markers around the dial that are coated with bright Super-Luminova that glows green in low light. The large hour and minute hands are partially skeletonized and also feature Super-Luminova coating. The hour hand has matching green lume while the minute hand is done with blue lume. Finally the seconds hand has an orange tip and also features matching green lume. A nice Easter egg can be found on the seconds counter weight which is actually a Zenith Star logo.



Zenith replaced the 3 o'clock hour marker with a color matching date window. The date text is done in white and serves as a good replacement for the missing hour marker. The Zenith and El Primero branding are printed at 12 o'clock with an applied star logo. At 6 o'clock you have "600 Meters / 1969 Feet" printed, which is a nod to the release year of the El Primero movement.

There is a fixed twelve sided bezel holding the crystal in place that is polished on the sides with the top being brushed in finish. Past that is the1 blue ceramic bezel that requires 120 clicks to complete a full rotation. The bezel requires a decent amount of effort to rotate and does so with a smooth and satisfying action which also produces a nice click. There is a tiny bit of back play in the bezel, but that is extremely common on divers. My Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms has the same back play on its bezel.



All bezel markings are coated with Super-Luminova with the tip of the bezel being a matching blue to the minute hand and the rest of the markers glowing in an orange-red hue. It's really nice to see that the tip of the bezel and minute hand have matching lume since they are what you use while timing a dive or any other elapsed time using the dive bezel.

The case of the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver is eight sided and has an integrated design to it. There are also enlarged chamfers surrounding the dial on each side. The large flat areas of the watch are brushed in finished while the chamfers are polished. The mixture of brushed and polished surfaces really makes the watch standout in good lighting.



The profile of the case shows the rather flat contouring of the watch which is just fine given the low lug to lug length of 47.5 mm. On the left hand side of the case there is a nearly flush helium relief value that shows how tool focused of a diver the DEFY Extreme Diver is.

The right hand side of the case finds the large crown guards and the oversized screw down crown. The crown guards are each fixed to the case using two exposed bolts which is a design cue I loved in older limited edition Offshores like my Juan Pablo Montoya. The crown has a star engraved on top of it with each of the points leading to a thick scallop in the crown. Between these thick scallops is one slimmer scallop. Overall the crown provides excellent grip and should be able to be operated while wearing dive gloves.



Once un-screwed the crown allows you to manually wind the automatic movement in its resting position. Pulling the crown out to position one allows you to set the date and pulling the crown all the way out to position two lets you set the time. Once the crown is pulled out to position two the seconds hand is stopped allowing you to accurately set the time. Pushing the crown back in causes no jump in the minute hand and lining up the crown to screw in needs no additional care and catches every time. The screw down crown aids in the impressive water resistance of 600 meters of the DEFY Extreme Diver.

Flipping the watch over shows off the stunning El Primero 3620 CS movement underneath a sapphire crystal display back. The movement beats away at 36,000 vph (5Hz) and has a power reserve of 60 hours. The movement is produced with anti-magnetic components such as silicon where possible. On our timegrapher the El Primero 3620 CS showed an accuracy of -1 seconds per day when averaged out over various positions. That is well within chronometer specifications and it was just fun hearing the 5Hz movement screaming on the timegrapher.



As mentioned earlier, the El Primero 3620 CS is nicely finished and sitting on top of it is the Zenith star winding rotor. The bottom two points of the star are attached to a weight with "Zenith Manufacture" printed on it. Underneath the rotor you can see a good deal of the movement exposed including the balance which is just humming away. Lots of the gear train is also visible through the display back. Zenith employs nice usage of perlage, linear graining and beveling on the movement as well. Although the DEFY Extreme Diver is a purpose built tool watch it is still finished very nicely.

The Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver has a lug width of 25 mm and since the case has an integrated design, only straps made specifically for the DEFY series will work on the watch. Personally I'm not a huge fan of bracelets or NATO style straps so for the majority of the time I wore the watch on the excellent rubber strap. The blue rubber strap tapers from 25 mm at the lugs down to 18 mm at the dual folding deployant clasp.

Near the top of the rubber strap there are ventilation holes on each side which would aid on hotter days. The top of the strap has a textured pattern that resembles fabric, while the back of the strap is slick and not textured. The strap has an interesting method for securing the pin to the strap where there is an additional pin in-front of the main pin that locks into the hole above the main pin to make sure the clasp is secure. Every extra level of strap security is an added bonus when dealing with serious dive watches.



The blue fabric strap comes with two end links that use the quick swap strap system to attach to the case. Like NATO straps the strap has a double pass-through and sits behind the case back. The strap then is sized using a standard pin buckle. The NATO style pass-through does add a bit of height to the watch since the strap runs underneath the watch. The strap is a complimenting blue to the dial color and has a dark grey highlight along each side.

Finally there is the titanium bracelet which tapers down from 25 mm at the lugs down to 17 mm at the double folding deployant clasp which requires two buttons to be pushed to be released. Like the case the flat areas of the bracelet are brushed and the chamfers are polished. The clasp is branded with the Zenith text and star logo. Opening up the clasp shows off some very nice perlage underneath, which is a nice added bonus since nobody will ever see it. The links are screwed in, which is really the preferred way to add or remove links. Zenith did not include a micro adjustment system for the DEFY Extreme Diver, but the links are rather small, so finding an optimal size shouldn't be too much of an issue.



Since I was so excited to see the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver in the metal I pretty much exclusively wore the watch over other review watches we had in and my personal pieces. Before I received the DEFY Extreme Diver the thing that worried me the most about the watch was the smaller than my preferred lug to lug length of 50 mm. At 47.5 mm I thought the watch would seem too small, but in reality the watch fit my wrist just perfectly. Sort of like a Royal Oak Offshore the integrated design of the case causes the strap to flare out making the watch wear bigger than numbers suggest. This was a very welcomed surprise and eased my concerns.

The watch was a dream on wrist and the rubber strap was really one of the most comfortable straps I've worn in a long time. The most comfortable rubber straps I've ever worn are the strap on my wife's Hublot Big Bang All Black and the original generation of rubber straps for the Royal Oak Offshore. The FKM rubber Zenith uses on the DEFY Extreme Diver puts it up there with those other two straps in terms of comfort. No break in was needed to make the strap super supple and I was able to find a pin position where the watch was neither too tight nor loose.



The legibility of the DEFY Extreme Diver was off the charts. I normally test this by seeing how much effort it takes to tell the time while driving. With just a glance I was easily able to read the time on the dial. The applied hour markers and hands are large offer great contrast on the dark blue dial, making telling the time super easy. The bezel was also fun to use to time grocery store trips and cooking pasta. I actually prefer dive bezels over chronographs for timing intervals less than 60 minutes. Just another nice "complication" dive watches add.

I wore the DEFY Extreme Diver on my boring day to day errands like running to FedEx and the grocery store as well as going out to dinner and drinks. The watch excelled in all those circumstances with my only issue being with the blue coloration. I tend to wear mostly black shirts or hoodies, so the blue and black do clash a bit. Wearing the watch on the titanium bracelet would reduce the amount of blue versus the blue rubber strap though. Also Zenith does offer the DEFY Extreme Diver with a black or white dial, which would probably fit my monochromatic wardrobe better.

The blue dial is just stunning though… like I mentioned earlier in the review the combination of dark blue and bright orange just sings on the dial. The watches I wear normally don't get much attention while being worn out unless I'm wearing some crazy skeleton, a gold piece or something out there like a Freak. The DEFY Extreme Diver bucked that trend and got complemented on frequently. Everyone I showed the watch to just loved the overall package, especially the blue and orange coloration of the dial.



For everything the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver offers, I feel the watch is a tremendous value for the asking price. The watch retails for $11,300 which includes the titanium bracelet, rubber strap and fabric strap. You also get one of the most legendary in-house movements in the El Primero with an incredible 5Hz beat rate and modern 60 hours of power reserve. The water resistance of 600 meters also puts the DEFY Extreme Diver in front of the more pedestrian but still more than enough 300 meters seen on most professional dive watches. I also personally think the design of the DEFY Extreme Diver is stunning. Now would be a good time to look at similar higher end dive watches and see how the DEFY Extreme Diver compares.

First up we have the Rolex Sea-Dweller measuring in at 43mm and crafted out of stainless steel. The Sea-Dweller is the more serious and dive focused brother of the Submariner. The Sea-Dweller has the "generic" dive watch aesthetic that Rolex has made famous and runs on the in-house 3235 automatic movement with 70 hours of power reserve. The Sea-Dweller does up the water resistance to 1,220 meters though, but does cost a bit more at $13,350 as well. Even though the Sea-Dweller isn't the most popular Rolex sports model, it still carries a long wait time and goes for more money than retail on the secondary market.



Next up we have the Fifty Fathoms from Blancpain also crafted out of titanium and having a case diameter of 45 mm. The Fifty Fathoms has very short lugs so it wears a lot smaller than the 45 mm case diameter would suggest. The Fifty Fathoms only has 300 meters of water resistance but does run on an in-house caliber 1315 automatic movement with 120 hours of power reserve. The Fifty Fathoms is also a lot more expensive than the DEFY Extreme Diver at $17,000.

Moving on we have the Ulysse Nardin Diver NET Azure measuring 44 mm and being crafted out of steel and recycled PA6 plastic. Like the Fifty Fathoms the Diver NET offers 300 meters of water resistance and runs off an in-house automatic calibre UN-118 with 60 hours of power reserve. The Diver NET has a very unique look to it but I really prefer the more expensive Diver X Skeleton to it. The Diver NET Azure is a little bit more expensive than the DEFY Extreme Diver at $13,300.

Finally we have the Royal Oak Offshore Diver from Audemars Piguet which is 42 mm and crafted out of stainless steel. The watch has 300 meters of water resistance and runs on an in-house automatic calibre 4308 with 60 hours of power reserve. For some reason Audemars Piguet doesn't offer the Offshore Diver in titanium which makes no sense to me. Also although I prefer dive watches to chronographs, the Offshore Diver has never been my favorite Offshore. At $30,500 the Royal Oak Offshore Diver is nearly three times the price of the DEFY Extreme Diver.



Of all the watches compared, the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver is the least expensive option. The specs of the watch hold its own and in some cases are better than the compared watches as well. Zenith also is just as respected as Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Ulysse Nardin and Rolex, so you can't really say you're paying for name with the other four pieces. I own a Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms as well as a Royal Oak Offshore and I actually prefer the DEFY Extreme Diver to the models I compared it to from Blancpain and Audemars Piguet.

So in the end is the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver for me? I would say with no hesitation that the watch is 100 percent for me. The one worry I had about the watch before spending time with it was it's shorter than 50 mm lug to lug length, but the flared nature of the strap and lugs made the watch wear bigger and fit my wrist perfectly.

In my opinion the watch is just stunning, if in black or white the watch would pretty much be perfect to me. I really miss watch brands getting a bit out there and making boldly designed pieces. I think there is definitely a market for pieces like the DEFY Extreme Diver. I feel too many brands are caught up with playing it conservative, look at the Royal Oak Offshore lineup of today compared to that of the 2000s to really see what I'm talking about.



If I wasn't actively looking for a good example of a 40 year old Porsche Design Ocean 2000 by IWC, I'd probably add a black dial Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver to my collection. I'm also pretty in love with my personal pieces, so I can't really see selling anything to get into one. It was a treat to spend some quality time with the watch and who knows what the future might hold.

So then would I recommend the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver to somebody looking for a high end dive watch? Naturally I would recommend it to somebody looking for such a watch. For the price the DEFY Extreme Diver offers a lot of what isn't present in watches that cost a good amount more. Zenith has also been one of the most respected watch manufactures for over one hundred years and this watch runs on one of the most iconic movements of all time. The DEFY Extreme Diver also works just as well on a rubber strap as it does on a fabric strap or bracelet. The fact that Zenith includes all these strap choices with the watch is something rarely seen. Each strap also transforms the watch from being more formal on the bracelet to sporty on the rubber or fabric straps. Once again it's just a great looking watch that is executed perfectly.

Well they say never meet your heroes because in most situations you will be let down. In this rare case the Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver lived up to the image I had in my head. I'd say the DEFY Extreme Diver is definitely my favorite watch released in 2024 and I might even go so far as to say it might be my favorite modern watch…



I'd really like the thank Zenith and Gigantem for sending us this DEFY Extreme Diver to review and will sorely miss it. While I have always been familiar with Zenith timepieces, this is now the second modern Zenith I was able to spend extended time with. Both of these pieces reinforce my belief that Zenith builds some of the finest watches on the market. While this will be a hard act to follow, I really can't wait to see what we'll get in next from Zenith to review.

For more information about the DEFY Extreme Diver please visit : Zenith

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: 95.9601.3620/51.I301

Retail Price: $11,300

Case Size: 42.5 mm

Lug to Lug: 47.5 mm

Thickness: 16 mm

Weight: 120 Grams (One Rubber Strap)

Case Material: Titanium

Bezel: Ceramic

Strap: Blue Rubber Strap with Deployant, Titanium Bracelet, Blue Fabric NATO Style Strap with Pin Buckle.

Movement: In-House El Primero 3620 CS Automatic

Functions: Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Date

Power Reserve: 60 Hours

Water Resistance: 600 Meters