LIV watches have seemed to find their way into the watch market with their unique designs clever marketing and building a fan base. If you visit the LIV website they have numerous FAQ's and articles on why they started, how the watch is made, great attention to quality and a passion for making watches while supporting their fans. I was loaned this watch from a fellow watch collector to see how the watch held up with the vast amount of marketing materials about their quality. Does LIV hold up to the hype and what they write about their watches, lets find out.
Specs::
Elaboré grade 26-jewel Sellita caliber SW200-1 Swiss automatic, 3-hand Swiss automatic with date, 40-hour power reserve. Certified at +/- 5 seconds accuracy
High-grade 316L stainless steel with skeleton case-back
Scratch-resistant sapphire crystal on front and case-back, anti-reflective coating on crystal interior
Case diameter: 41 mm, Case height: 12.9 mm, Lug width: 22.0 mm, Height with lug: 48 m
300 meters (1000 feet)
Screw down, gasketed, with LIV logo enamel inlay
Multi-layer wave pattern sandwich white dial, steel sword-shaped hands with BGW9 luminescence
Adjustable 316L stainless steel bracelet or high-grade silicone strap with black tang buckle (additional strap options available)
Five-year transferable guarantee against all manufacturer defects
The dial for me doesn't look too bad, very heavy on the logo and wording for me is a major downside for the watch. The orange LIV logo could have been just fine and also remove the LIV text at the bottom, and they it would have been enough.
I want to post some snippets taken from LIVs website which is about quality and how they check and double the check their watches. This I have to admit is a bold statement to release and is the main reason why I wanted to review this watch. So with all these so called checks they shouldn't be missing a thing.
Looking up close at the dial it did not take me long to find a issues with the watch. I would have expected if they really did check with a microscope that they would see this, after all I found it.
The text at the bottom is another big issue I noticed being severely off.
The hands are brushed very thick which for me I would prefer a bit smoother. They are cut nicely and the lume is done well.
The lume around the bezel and all the markings are done nicely with my main issue is being the brushed steel used for the pip marking at 12. It just seems to be cut poorly and may have been better off not putting it there at all.
The case brushing is nicely done on the watch. The crown is easy to use and is smooth but a bit off center.
The case back is decent while it can be prone to scratching very easily its solidly made. Also important to note that the screws have a tendency to come loose and they shouldn't have coated them,
The Lume is done exceptionally well. The only thing I felt that could of been done differently was maybe adding some lume to the date wheel to bring it full circle.
Overall it seems like a brand claiming to have outstanding quality control doesn't seem to be the case here. With the watch retailing at $790 I find it hard to justify spending that with everything I found to be an issue here. You are getting a lot of watch in terms of specs but the quality just doesn't fit. Now of course this could just be a one off but I had to hold them to what they wrote and hopefully other are not this bad.
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