The Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 is most certainly a high-end watch. This is an ultimate tool watch. Not so much in being amazingly durable, but rather, in its intense attention to detail, finishing, and technology, all in a relatively simple and straight forward case. Seiko has a very serious relationship with high-end dive watches and the company produces no shortage of them each year.

The Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 isn’t even that new of a model, but it still shines as one of the most well-rounded luxury Japanese high-end sport watches around.   The reference SBGA029 version of the Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver is the most simple, being offered with a black dial. Seiko also produced the SBGA031 version of this watch in titanium with gold-colored text on the dial, as well as the limited edition SBGA071, also in titanium but with a blue dial. Each comes in a 44.2mm-wide case that is 14mm wide and water-resistant to 200 meters.

This latter point is sort of amusing because despite the fact that the Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 will satisfy the diving needs of most people, enthusiasts complain that Seiko should have made it water resistant to 300 meters. Seiko, of course, has its share of 300-meter and 1000-meter water resistant watches, but oddly, they keep some of these models “held back” a bit for reasons beyond most people’s comprehension. I will go so far as to say that I’d trust a Grand Seiko 200m diver in instances where I would not trust many other 300m divers from other brands.

While many Seiko dive watches attempt to have some type of unique personality through a design quirk or two, the Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 is remarkably simple in its dial and case execution. There isn’t a saw-blade style-rotating bezel, no extra screws on the case, and no added implements to the dial in order to make it more “unique.” What you have is a rare instance of restrained simplicity in a luxury Japanese watch, similar to how Europeans to do.

As the Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 is a few years old now, it lacks a few features that some more modern high-end dive watches have such as a ceramic bezel, and the deployant clasp is on the thicker side. Seiko uses their still-excellent ratcheting-style deployant clasp on a few models such as the Grand Seiko Quartz Diver watches that I reviewed here. The deployant is comfortable and works well, but it uses a lot of stamped metal parts. Seiko makes an excellent case and dial, and while their bracelets are very good, brands like Rolex and Omega still beat them in terms of overall quality. Comfort might be a different story depending on the specific wrist we are talking about, but Seiko would have just that many more people convinced if they overhauled the construction methods used for their bracelets.The bracelet is actually “Speedmaster-style” with a brushed three link layout with small polished interior sections. The case and bracelet have a lot of hand-done machine finishing and the overall look and feel is fantastic. Where Seiko really shines on Grand Seiko models (in addition to the movements) is the detailing and materials used for the dial. Seiko rarely screws up things like legibility and reflectivity, so looking at their dials is more often than not an extremely pleasant experience.

Just look at those large hour and minute hands with their rich amount of luminant and brushed metal surfaces that don’t sloppily reflect light. I always urge European watch makers to carefully study what Seiko does with its better dials and learn from them. There are polished elements to their dials such as the metal base of the applied hour markers, but they don’t cause blur coming from reflective light. That is because the surfaces are very flat thanks to diamond polishing.

The dial of the Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 features the time, date, and power reserve indicator for the movement. The lume is silly how good it is, and again, I just think its dedication to quality and readability make the Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 beautiful. At its core, you have a dial that is unmistakably a Seiko diver, but the Grand Seiko element to the product just ups the quality all around.Inside the Grand Seiko Spring Drive Diver SBGA029 is the Seiko in-house-made caliber 9R65 Spring Drive movement. This is one of the first Spring Drive family movements ever released, I believe, and it is accurate to one second per day with three days of power reserve. If you don’t already know what Spring Drive is then I will simply explain that it is a special Seiko invention that combines the best of a mechanical movement with the accuracy of a quartz movement. That is because the 9R65 is powered by a traditional mainspring, but rather than using a traditional regulation system, it uses a quartz crystal regulator.