New watch - new SD4000 vs Explorer II 216570 Comparison

[sheldonsmith]

Hi Shelden, what is your conclusion drawn from the comparison posted?
Cheers
Michael

Here are the closing paragraphs from the final thoughts section. There is more discussion and images from the piece at http://www.minus4plus6.com/SD4000.htm

How it Wears
After wearing the DeepSea SeaDweller, a 17mm high, 44mm wide, 215g behemoth of a dive watch for almost a year, the SDc4000 is a sigh of relief. I have a 6 5/8th wrist and the DSSD was a great weekend watch, but my wrist started to feel beat after a few weeks of wearing it. When my wrist felt beat, I would switch to the Explorer II 216570 letting out a sigh of relief. To let my normal watch wrist recover, I would wear the Explorer II on the opposite wrist for a few days.

The DSSD is a fantastic piece of engineering and would still be wearing it if the watch was not so top heavy and tall. I believe the DSSD would be more comfortable if it were less tall. I had to keep the DSSD pretty tight on the wrist. The much heavier platinum Daytona rides closer to the wrist and thus does not flop around as much.

The SDc4000 is a great combination of rugged watch with thicker everything, yet has the relative comfort of the Explorer II. I appreciate the thicker caseback raising the watch case higher allowing clearance between the crown and the back of my hand. A 150g watch is much easier on the wrist. If you like to have your watches slide around a bit like with the older hollow-link, tuna-can bracelets found on the originals, both the SDc4000 and Explorer II allow for that without beating up the back of your hand. The SDc4000's raised caseback, and the slightly raised Explorer II caseback matched with the narrower Twinloc crown allow for both watches to be worn slighly loose

The SDc4000 watch face is as visible as the Explorer II, but it does not have the orange 24 hour hand and other orange accents that I appreciate on the Explorer II.

On the comfort side, both the SDc4000 and Explorer II are very similar. The SDc4000 is a tad heavier and slightly taller causing a *little* more watch flop, but not anything like the DSSD. The SDc4000 looks smaller on the wrist as the Explorer II, but has the same amount of watch presence. For ones who are desk diving or desk exploring, both watches are a coin flip. The Glidelock clasp standard on the SDc4000 might sway me to the SDc4000, but that feature is counteracted by the larger hands and dial orange accents, and 24-hour hand resident on the Explorer II. The smaller looking SDc4000 possesses some very angular features (raised crystal, raised bracelet end links) that make the SDc4000 stand out from the GMTs and Submariners. Between the two watches, I would have a hard time selecting just one. Both the SDc4000 and Explorer II have features that I use daily. Too bad Rolex does not make a SDc4000 Explorer merging all distinguishing features of both watches into one watch. Now there's an idea...