fresh from the showcase at SwissWatchExpo we have a comparison for the ages the
Patek Philippe Nautilus versus the Patek Philippe
Aquanaut the hipper younger brother we'll see which one comes out on top
here at SwissWatchExp we get a lot of attention for the Patek Philippe Nautilus and the Aquanaut
and for good reason these are some of the best known most treasured watches in the entire
world the Nautilus I'm sure you know the story was designed by Gerald Genta it really was a
refinement of his Audemars Decay Royal Oak design and it really is an interesting evolution of the
Royal Oak when you look at it because it does have a similar brushed bezel but it's a good bit more
refined it's more of a dressy sport watch where the Royal Oak is a little bit more on the sporty
side of the address a sport watch segment but on the Nautilus you saw the porthole design really
sort of come to fruition it has the wings on the side which are really its most iconic design
element but the bezel itself is just gorgeous it is not really an octagonal shape like the Royal
Oak it is sort of an octagonal-ish shape it has a gentle curve and unlike the Royal Oak which has a
round Center to the bezel this one it actually follows the track of the bezel so we have the
same shape inside and outside the bezel it is just gorgeous the way the finishing is done you
see the amount of hand work that Patek Philippe puts into every one of these watches is really
apparent it's on full display with these because you have the high polish on the edges of the bezel
the satin on the top when you look at the way the case is put together it's just a really refined
watch it's a lot more sort of of attention to fine detail and it's designed than what you see
on the Royal Oak and the probably highest demand Nautilus that we have is the 5711 which we have
represented here on the alligator strap with the gray dial these dials are just an art to behold
when you look at them they have multiple colors they have these horizontal lines that pick up the
light in different ways depending on how it's hitting it at the time whether you go with the
gray the blue the white the dials are beautiful the hands on the Nautilus are a bit thin and
the markers are thin so that's where I'm talking about that it does come down a little more on the
side of the dress watch of the the dressy sporty watch segment that we're looking at it does have
some crown guards the the wings that we do see the the porthole design but even on the leather strap
version there's a lot of attention to detail in the clasps the casebacks the exhibition case back
that we see on the movement the movement has the Geneva seal on this one the later models
of course have the Patek Philippe seal but the movements have the level of decoration you've
come to expect from Patek Philippe every screw head is polished and polished and beveled every
plate every bit of the movement is correctly beveled it has the Cotes de Geneve all over it
and the watch itself overall is pretty thin it's a lot thinner than a Royal Oak and it sits very
nicely on the wrist especially this leather strap version because the strap can come sort
of straight down from the watch so it can fit on a smaller wrist because it's not real thick
it really is kind of the every man watch I know not every man has the money in the pocket to come
out for this watch but if everyone could afford one they certainly could wear it on their wrist
this particular one we have is the 5712 the 5711 is just the time and the date the 5712 we have
here is one of my favorites among the Nautilus line because it does have the moonphase and
the dates in this subdial and then it has the sub seconds hand of course all of it's lumed
but it's very subtle in its lume compared to the hipper younger brother of the Aquanaut now
the the Nautilus came out in 1976 the Aquanaut came out in 1997 as sort of a little bit leaning
more towards the sport side of this sporty dressy conglomeration we've got here and if you look at
the differences in the dials you can see that the Aquanaut dial is a lot more bold the sort
of global lines that are on the dial are a lot bigger than the dial lines on the Nautilus and
so it just gives a much more bold look but it has the same sort of variety of color when the
light hits it it starts out at in the center sort of a bronzy Goldy steel looking color and
then it ends up more gray towards the edges it's a fascinating change of color across the dial but
you can see that the hands are a lot thicker the second hand is much brighter and bolder in the way
it's designed it has much thicker our indices and then it has these big bold Arabic numerals and of
course everything is fully loomed missing are the wings on the sides of the Nautilus so it's really
um the most prominent design difference between the two but it really isn't what makes the big
difference between the two watches because when you look at them the Aquanaut definitely looks
more towards the sporty side it's just a hair thicker and a lot of the nautiluses that we sell
do come on the steel bracelet a lot of what the the fascination with the Nautilus is is on the the
hand finishing of every single link and a lot of the Aquanauts that we sell around the rubber strap
which puts them even more towards that sports side and the rubber strap is really really durable from
Patek Philippe it has a great clasp on it as well but I wanted to show you the the difference in the
bracelets that this is the Aquanaut bracelet very finely finished as well just like the
Nautilus bracelet just a different design that's a little bit more sporty a little less towards
the elegant side I think that it is really a sort of a trick of the eye that we were just
talking about that on the Aquanaut the bezel looks bigger than on the Nautilus but I think
it's just because the Nautilus has more outside the bezel on the case now these watches are both
nominally 40 millimeter by 40 millimeter but the Aquanaut does look bigger and I think a lot of
that is because of the way the the wings are on the Nautilus the eye sort of focuses more on the
dial Center and on the bezel and on the Aquanaut it just looks bigger overall part of that is
probably because of the boldness of the Arabic numbers and the hour indices on the Aquanaut
of course you've got the same type of double deployment buckle the same exhibition caseback
in fact it's the same exact movement as the 5711 Nautilus so when it comes down to a comparison
when you look at these two watches they are so different that my actual recommendation is
that you would buy both of them because I think you you probably need both to have one a little
bit more dressy one a little bit more sporty and that way you'll have a great investment on your
hands as well if you had both of them so give us a call check our website you can type in the
word Aquanaut or the word Nautilus on the search and see everything that we have in stock but give
us a call we're happy to do a FaceTime or Zoom video call we can show you specific watches our
store and our service center and we'll be happy to help you narrow it down and get your order placed