Home, 2006-12-27
The PRS-11 is manufactured for Eddie Platts of Timefactors (http://www.timefactors.com/). Eddie is best known as the creator of the Dreadnought PRS-2.
The PRS-11 is an automatic version of the PRS-3 and PRS-4. It is said that Eddie designed the PRS-3 and PRS-4 because he was unable to get the rights to sell watches from CWC (http://www.cwc-watches.com/), and it is easy to see where most of the design originates from (the CWCs are in turn made after the military specifications of a Royal Navy diver's watch).
The PRS-11 became available in July 2003 and was planned to be sold only with an orange dial, but by popular demand it also became available with the black dial of the PRS-3/PRS-4. The watch is "Swiss Made", by Zeno-Watch Basel (http://www.zeno-watch.ch/).
The PRS-11 was bought directly from Timefactors in England for £195 plus £15 for shipping from England to Denmark. It came with a Rhino strap in a small flightcase-style box with a polishing cloth and papers.
The PRS-11 looks special because it is PVD coated black and has the distinctive military dial. I love the non-shiny stealth look of the watch (only interrupted by the shiny crown).
The case is PVD coated steel with a brushed back with some basic engravings.
The watch has a traditional crown protection and an unsigned crown. The crown is more shiny than the case and looks like it is anodized rather than PVD coated (it is the same color as the rings on the black PVD rhino strap). The crown has a really good grip and feels very solid. The crystal is flat sapphire without anti-reflection coating. The watch is designed to be water resistant to 300 meter (but the watches are not individually pressure tested to 300 meter).
After about a year's usage I have found several small scratches in the PVD on the case and many scrates in the bezel, which seems to be made of a softer material than the case (brass?). I would not expect the PVD to hold up well if the watch is used in rough conditions.
| Bezel | 39mm |
| Case | 42mm |
| Width incl. crown | 45mm |
| Lug tip to lug tip | 47.5mm |
| Lug spacing | 20mm |
| Height | 11.5mm |
| Weight | 78g |
Dimensions (measured).
The bezel is unidirectional and with minute markings. There is one stop per minute. The bezel does not provide much traction and is hard to operate with gloves on (this is a common problem with bezels). On my watch, the insert was loose, and the pip on the bezel not centred in the top triangle. When I examined the loose insert closely, it fell off (however, after an encounter with some cyanoacrylat glue it sits tight). The bezel insert is made of a very soft material (aluminium), and after a years use it has its share of marks and scratches.
I would rate the bezel as the weakest part of this watch.
It was the dial that first caught my eyes on the PRS-11, it is simple and easy to read. The utilitarian hand-design puts focus on the minute hand. There is not much print on the dial. I find the circled T rather silly as the watch uses Super Luminova, but read this explanation somewhere: the PRS-3 and PRS-4 predecessors where actually designed with tritium in mind, but Tritium where phased out at the time the dials was produced and the PRS-11 with black dial shares the dial with the PRS-3 (whereas the orange dial dial PRS-11 uses a newly designed dial without the circled T).
The quality of the printing on the dial is really good, even under a 6x loupe -- very impressive at this price level. The date is black on white, I think white on black would have fitted better into the all-black design. The hands are not colored fully on the sides or Luminova has spilled to the sides. The Luminova on the hands does not match the color of the Luminova on the dial (the hands are whitish matte, whereas the luminova on the dial is a glossy green).
Hand and dial details.
The Luminova coating on the PRS-11 is good. The luminosity of the hands seem to last a bit longer than the markings on the dial.
The movement is an unregulated unadjusted stock ETA 2824-2, probably the second lowest grade "Elaboroe" edition with Incabloc and nickel balance. When I got the watch it gained about 20 seconds a day. Ten months later this was reduced to 18 seconds per day, and after regulation it gains 2 seconds a day on the wrist and looses around 5-10 seconds a day if I leave it in the drawer every other day. The positional performance is good, better than the average low grade ETA 2824-2.
| dial up | +7 |
| dial down | +10 |
| crown up | 0 |
| crown down | +6 |
| crown left | -2 |
| crown right | +2 |
| greatest deviation | +12 |
| average deviation | +4 |
Positional performance after regulation (per 24 hours).
The PRS-11 is in its essence a homage to the CWC diver's watches, but with better specifications and an alternative hand design. The watch has some weak points, but mostly cosmetical, and at less than £200 some it is a great deal at around half the price of an automatic CWC with date (with mineral glass, and polished insted of PVD).