We live in the Great Recycling Era. No, not of the material, eco-conscious variety — if only we, as a species, did a better job of that. The recycling I refer to is conceptual, ideological, and cultural in nature. Turn on the radio, and you’ll hear songs that not only reference older songs but that wholesale reuse their rhythms, melodies, and even lyrics with minimal alteration. Go to the movies, or turn on the TV, and you’re likely to see a story that continues a long-dormant title or reimagines it for the present, often with too little actual imagination.
Nostalgia sells, especially to Gen X and my dear fellow Millennials, who now have, in general, the coveted purchasing power that culture creators so dearly desire. This isn’t always bad. I’m a fan of some of these reimagining or reissues. Wild Thoughts is a good song, and Top Gun: Maverick is a better movie than the original. Those same waters, though, contain some toxic garbage. I’m looking at you, Total Recall and Coming 2 America — your half-lives of midday basic cable run times will be far too long.
In this era of referential culture, the Maranez Samui Army Titanium sits, in my view, closer to the former. Yes, it heavily, unmistakably references a fairly iconic model, the Doxa (or Synchron?) Army, yet it does so honestly and with respect for the source material. This isn’t Jimi Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower, wherein the remake is a vast improvement upon the original, but it is at least Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, great and different enough to stand alone, if not outright better than the original. In the guise I had for this review, Maranez made some choices that actually build upon the source material, providing opportunities that one cannot obtain through Doxa or Synchron.
The first of these material differences is just that, the material. As the title of this review betrayed, the Samui Army is available in titanium. Indeed, you’ll need to be content with titanium if you want the Black DLC version, which is presently not available in stainless steel. The titanium vs. stainless steel discussion, without delivering into the varieties of each, is one of those horological-nerdom debates that strikes me as a way for folks to argue for the sake of arguing. I like watches in both, and my preference for one material or the other pertains more to the intended purpose and design of the watch in question rather than some esoteric metallurgical enthusiasm.
Titanium construction makes perfect sense for the Samui Army because it makes the watch feel as stealthy as it looks. As this is a fairly wide watch at 42mm, and on the taller side by modern standards at 13.6mm, the weight savings offered by titanium makes a more significant difference than it would on a more diminutive watch. This comes into play with the bracelet as well, which we’ll return to shortly. All this to say, titanium fits the vibe.
The second material difference the Samui Army offers is the aforementioned bracelet. Yes, I am aware that Doxa offers their Army with a bracelet, but only in stainless steel. You’ll get no bracelet with Synchron’s Army. With the Maranez, we have a DLC-coated titanium bracelet with a low-profile divers’ extension and a matte finish that further accentuates the watch’s clandestine appearance. The bracelet is well-constructed, with tight tolerances and some of the beefiest screw-pins I’ve encountered in a watch, yet somehow lacks the squeaky jangle of many other titanium bracelets. The clasp is of the friction-fit variety (I can already hear the critiques from the YouTube review crowd) but it works very well, which is the most important consideration.
How does the watch wear? Well, it wears like a Doxa or like any of the Doxa homages currently en vogue. The lower part of the midcase is fairly flat, which makes the horizontal dimension of the case wear physically true to its size. This is visually offset, though, by the 38.5mm bezel, with its broad horizontal plane and bold-printed, fully-graduated index. The effect, which leaves a little over 1.5mm of case visible on the 9 and 3 o’clock sides, pulls your eyes to the center of the dial, reducing the visual heft of the Samui Army’s 42mm width. The 45mm lug–to-lug further reduces the Samui Army’s visual and physical presence, helping the Samui case to wear very comfortably. Credit to the original pioneer who designed this case for Doxa; it is magical. Even its flattest elements – the case sides – are curved in a manner that adds grace to what could easily have been a brutalist nightmare.
That chunky bezel is equipped with a sapphire bezel insert on which the 10-minute markings are lumed, and it rotates through its 120 clicks with mechanical precision. No back play, no alignment issues, and with the familiar Doxa inverted top-hat bezel and matte DLC treatment, no grip issues. The click note is a bit higher pitched, probably on account of the titanium, but it isn’t tinny. As is true for the overall execution of the Samui Army, Maranez has done very well with construction.
Working inward from the bezel, the dial is familiar to anyone who has seen Synchron and Doxa’s Army models. It isn’t elegant, and it sure isn’t for everyone, but the design effectively accomplishes its intended purpose, which is to make telling the time incredibly easy. The alternating checkerboard pattern of the hour and minute scale, the contrasting black footer blocks beneath each hour marker, and the contrasting off-white dial center tremendously emphasize the position of the hours. The minutes are represented by white hashes on a black background in about as stark a callout as you can ask for without going digital.
The hour hand is delightfully weird, appearing like a house on a stick that circles the dial, while the minute hand looks like the type of thick memorabilia pencil you might get on a school trip to a place that would be considered boring if not for the fact that it got you out of school for a day. The second hand is a triangle on a stick, not special except for the intense legibility emanating from the white-on-orange-on-black color combination. Maranez opted not to utilize the iconic Doxa 10/4 diagonal printing for the dial text, and utilized a more traditional center-adjusted format. A bit less quirky than the archetype(s) but not problematic. The lume, across the hands, dial indexes, and the bezel is very good, and from what I’ve seen from standard Doxa subs, exceeds the quality of Doxa’s lume application. Presumably, it will help light the way to the Samui Army’s 300m depth rating. From my own experience, it will certainly help with telling the time during a night-time power outage, perhaps more fitting for the bezel’s mission-timing countdown scale.
No, Maranez does not get credit for originating this dial design, but they have, again, executed it well. My only gripe with the dial is the color of the center portion, which the brand calls “off-white.” It is, indeed, very off-white, so off as to be closer to tan than white. When I contacted the brand about this, I was told that it appears whiter when compared to the same model with the cream dial. I don’t doubt that to be true, but I also would prefer a shade of off-white that is evidently so without having to purchase a second watch to compare it to.
The Samui Army arrives, typically, with a great leather watch roll that has four watch pouches and a fifth one that can carry a spring bar tool. I say typically because, for a brief time, Maranez ran a sale wherein you could get the watch for less money by opting out of the watch roll. It isn’t a must-have, but the roll is made of high-quality pebbled leather and is constructed to the same exacting standards as Maranez’s watches. Inside the pouch, Maranez also provides a rubber strap (with hardware to match the watch’s finishing) that references the iconic Isofrane-style ladder strap. Maranez’s version is good quality, but it doesn’t work as well with the watch, to my eye, as the bracelet or a NATO-style strap. Despite my preferences, I give points to Maranez for supplying the rubber strap along with the bracelet. I just preferred my own orange Tropic.
As to how the Samui Army compares to reissued progenitors of this design? Well, the homage watch waters are treacherous and fraught with contentious opinions. Where I might find myself bored with homages in a general sense, I do appreciate what Maranez has done to move beyond the inspiration for the Samui Army’s design. Yes, Doxa did offer a special edition of the Army that was carbon-cased, making it both exceedingly lightweight and black-hued, as is Maranez’s entry in the field. That special edition, while very cool, also rang up for $4,500 pre-tax, did not come with a bracelet, and ran in a decidedly small quantity. Synchron offers, infrequently, their Army variant with a black case, but one crafted of steel. Not a bad thing per se, but different than what Maranez brings to the table. Also, as mentioned before, you’ll get no bracelet from Synchron.
Both Doxa’s and Synchron’s Army models are equipped with the ETA 2824, a venerable workhouse movement that can be serviced by a competent watchmaker the world over. The Maranez is equipped with the Seiko NH-35, a venerable workhouse movement that can be serviced by a competent watchmaker the world over. You may get better timekeeping from the ETA, but the NH35 is capable of being dialed in to tight accuracy if you are so inclined. Or, with the at least $500 savings the Maranez affords, you could take it to a watchmaker to get it within chronometer spec. The watch I had on hand was decidedly not within such a range and ran an average of +50 seconds per day. Perhaps it was magnetized at some point during the 3 week period in which FedEx could not locate the package. I’m willing to consider it an anomaly, given the context. There are likely to be some quality upgrades, such as improved timekeeping accuracy, that come with stepping up to Synchron or Doxa’s Army models (I’d certainly hope so), but that said, and despite the not-so-good out-of-the-box accuracy of the Maranez Samui Army Titanium, you are still getting a well-constructed watch for a very good price, $499 and often on sale for 15-20% off.
As for debates about originality and the purity of intellectual property? Call me crazy, but I lack empathy in this instance, as Doxa has done very well for themselves the past decade-plus by re-issuing designs that are nearly 60 years old. I love Doxa, and I appreciate what Synchron is doing to resurface some esoteric models from the halcyon days of the mid-60s diving culture, but both brands have chosen to stick to the hits, perhaps wisely, given their popularity. They’ve had lots of time to iterate and innovate on their designs, but neither brand is pushing the boundaries of design. Maranez may not have come up with the recipe, but they’ve done a great job of baking their own version.
