REVIEW: Prometheus Baiji (Part 1)

If you’ve been around the watch “scene” for any amount of time, you’re very likely aware of the Portuguese brand Prometheus.  While they produce a variety of styles,  the ones that have been of the most interest to me have been the ones that feature tritium lighting.  Today, we’re going to take a look at one of their most recent models, the Baiji.

Now, you might be thinking that Baiji is an odd name – it definitely wasn’t one that I had heard before.  It’s actually a tribute to a freshwater species of dolphin that used to live in the Yangtze river and has, unfortunately, gone extinct due to pollution in that waterway.  This tribute is carried over onto the caseback as well with the engraving.

Should you find yourself diving with dolphins, this watch will hold up to your activities.  Most important, of course, would be illumination, and the Baiji has that in spades.  This is courtesy of the long-life tritium tubes embedded on the dial and the hands of the watch.  Surprisingly, there’s also lume around each of the tritium capsules on the dial, adding another bit of color in the dark.

Next would be a timing bezel, which on this model is a 120 click uni-directional one.  It also has a tritium tube embedded in it, so you can always tell where the start point of the timing is.  The bezel offers nice solid clicks, but it did have perhaps a touch more play in it than I would have preferred. Then again, I’m not a diver, so that’s something that’s largely forgivable.

And that’s where we’ll need to leave things for today.  Tomorrow, we’ll finish up the specs, as well as go into the movement used and the aesthetics of the watch.