Last year, we got our first look at the updated Tudor Black Bay line with the release of the red bezel Black Bay. The release got a largely positive response from the watch community with many collectors instantly considering it for their newest watch box addition. The watch gained more widespread attention when it was spotted on the wrist of San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback, Brock Purdy, during Super Bowl weekend and a month later when he wore it at his wedding. One year later, we get the arrival of a black bezel and black dial variant of the updated Black Bay. While many will likely talk about the design not being anything new, one thing is for sure: this watch should be a very good seller for Tudor.
Let’s go ahead and look at the stats of this new Black Bay. The steel case comes in at 41mm in diameter and 13.6mm thick, with a lug width of 21mm. The lugs themselves feature both polish and satin finishing. The case is water resistant to 200m, which is more than enough to handle swimming and most diving humans would engage in. Tudor used a steel screw-down crown to help with its water resistance, with the crown featuring a Tudor rose logo in relief. For the bezel, Tudor went with a 60-minute unidirectional bezel in steel with a black aluminum insert. Turning towards the dial, we’re getting basically the usual Tudor Black Bay look with the iconic snowflake hour hand, but luckily they decided to go without the gilt text and accents for this model, instead opting for white accents this time. In my opinion, the gilt accenting was a huge part of what held some previous Black Bay’s back from selling as well as they could have. Don’t get me wrong, it looks nice on certain models (see the recent red bezel Black Bay for reference), but their main Black Bay in black would feel a little dated if it had the gilt dial accents. Luckily, they went with a more contemporary approach for this updated version.
Inside the watch, Tudor is using their in-house automatic Cal. MT5602-U. The MT5602-U was first released last year, at Watches & Wonders 2023, with the introduction of the red bezel Tudor Black Bay, which was the model that ushered the Black Bay line into the future. The movement beats at 28,800 v/h and is COSC certified, METAS certified, and has a power reserve of 70 hours. Other features of the movement include a silicon hairspring and anti-magnetic properties allowing it to stand up to 15,000 gauss. Overall, a very good movement, especially when considering that many even more expensive dive watches aren’t fitted with as capable of a movement as this Black Bay.
Tudor offers the watch on three different bracelet/strap options: a three-link stainless steel bracelet with polished and satin finishing, a jubilee bracelet with polished and satin finishing, and a rubber strap with a “T-fit” clasp. The one that looks the most like a Submariner is the three-piece bracelet, but it does have rivets on the sides of the bracelet. If you’re not a fan of the rivets, which is the group I fall in, opt for either the jubilee bracelet or the rubber strap options. The watch comes with a five-year, transferrable guarantee.
Overall, this is a very good watch, but we’ve got to talk about the comparisons to the Submariner, because they’re clearly very similar watches made by sister companies. I much prefer the overall feel of a Rolex Submariner case, bezel, and three-piece bracelet to those of a Black Bay, but does that justify spending over twice the money for the Rolex? That’s for you to decide, but, in any case, the Tudor is a very solid option. The main differences are going to be the overall feel of the watch, the fact that this watch uses an aluminum bezel instead of a ceramic bezel (which if you prefer an older five-digit Submariner, you might actually prefer the new Black Bay over the new Sub), the water resistance (but honestly who NEEDS 300m of water resistance instead of 200?), and the fact that you actually get more factory bracelet/strap options with the Tudor than the Rolex. Somebody please explain to me why the watch that costs more than two times the price should be the one without bracelet/strap options, but I digress.
I’m very impressed with this Tudor, especially with the fact that the movement is as robust as it is. Having a 70-hour power reserve puts it right up there with the Submariner’s Cal. 3230. The timekeeping accuracy is pretty much indistinguishable from the Sub’s. The only movement feature you’re missing here is the option of a date, but in most cases I wouldn’t think that would be a dealbreaker for someone. While Tudor likely won’t bring back the “Tudor Submariner” name, this watch deserves the “Submariner” title. The only thing it’s missing are some slight dial and hand changes to complete the look. This watch is absolutely the “Submariner-lite”, and I don’t say that in a bad way. You could easily make an argument that this is the better watch between the two when you take price into consideration. You could even say it’s the better watch between the two due to its slightly more vintage feel between the aluminum bezel and the snowflake hour hand, but not too vintage feeling as they’ve thankfully removed the gold dial accents that they tend to use on a number of Black Bay models. My only big flaw I can point out with this watch is the inclusion of rivets on one of the bracelet options, but luckily they have jubilee and rubber strap options to make that not as big of a factor. Overall? Nothing groundbreaking, but well done, Tudor. This is the new, more reasonably priced version of a Submariner.
The new Tudor Black Bay is priced at 4,225 USD on a strap, 4,425 USD on a three-piece bracelet, and 4,550 USD on a jubilee bracelet.