If you’ve been following my reviews for a while, you’re probably thinking, “What’s wrong with this guy? This is already his fourth Oceaneva review!” Believe me, there’s nothing going on between me and Oceaneva. Just like all my other reviews, this one isn’t sponsored either — I only write about watches I actually bought myself, and that goes for every Oceaneva I’ve owned. To be fair, I genuinely thought my last Oceaneva watch review — the one about their newest dive watch with an insane 6000 m water resistance — was going to be my final Oceaneva write-up. I even thought it would be the last Oceaneva I’d ever buy.
But of course, fate had other plans. Not long after I finished that review, an email from Oceaneva landed in my inbox with a teaser for their new watch — and this time, they had stepped completely out of their diver watch comfort zone! They went and made something entirely different, something that has nothing to do with the brand’s ocean-and-diving DNA. They introduced a dress watch — and not a round one, but a square one! And to top it off, it’s not thick but thin. According to them, even ultra-thin. They named it the Tenius (Ultra-Thin).
Almost at the same time, they also teased another 6000 m diver, this time with a GMT function and a Miyota movement. That one didn’t convince me at all. A 6000 m WR diver with a 24-hour bezel? Makes no sense and feels unnecessary. But a square dress watch with 100 m WR and a Sellita SW200 inside? Now that caught my attention — and here we are again, with yet another Oceaneva review.
The biggest problem was choosing which of the ten versions to get. Personally, the ones that stood out to me were the blue dial on the standard steel case, and the blue dial paired with a two-tone steel and rose gold bezel and bracelet center links. But honestly, I already own too many blue-dial watches, and my DEII already has that steel-and-rose-gold combo. So I ruled out both blue versions — as well as the brown dial on the same two-tone setup. Sadly, that meant eliminating three of what I considered the most attractive options.
The fourth in line was the standard stainless steel model with a reddish-burgundy dial — and that’s the one you see here today. Worth mentioning: each version is limited to only 50 pieces, meaning just 500 Tenius Ultra-Thin watches exist in total. You can check out the full collection here.
So, let's take a closer look at the Oceaneva Tenius Ultra-Thin Burgundy.
Right from the packaging, it’s clear we’re in completely different territory compared to the Deep Marine Explorer models. Instead of the huge, solid Pelican-style case that usually came with extras like tools or a spare rubber strap, the Tenius arrives in a modest — actually, overly modest — cardboard box. Inside, you’ll only find the watch, a warranty card, and a cleaning cloth.
The bracelet is huge — in my estimation it will easily fit a wrist of at least 22 cm. For my almost-19 cm wrist, I had to remove five links, and each link is about 7.5 mm long. I still have three removable links left, so if your wrist is under 17 cm, you’ll probably run into some trouble.
Removing links on this bracelet is really simple — all you need is a screwdriver, since the links are held together by a regular screw. The screws aren’t glued; in fact, it’s the opposite, they’re lubricated. That makes them very easy to loosen and tighten back in. Could that ever become a problem, with screws loosening on their own while wearing the watch? Hard to say, but I doubt it.
Let me stay with the bracelet for a bit. The dimensions are quite unusual. The top width of the first link is almost 25 mm, while the case — where the bracelet is integrated — narrows to 26 mm at its narrowest point. From there, the width drops sharply toward the clasp, which measures only 17.3 mm at its narrowest, and the removable links are the same width. On my wrist size, where I have only one link on one side, the transition looks fairly smooth. But on a larger wrist, where many links would remain, the sudden drop from 25 to 17.5 mm and then the continuation with a very narrow bracelet looks a bit odd. I feel the bracelet would’ve looked better with a wider clasp section, maybe around 20 mm. Then again, that would probably make the whole bracelet look quite massive. In any case, on my wrist it still looks reasonably balanced.
Center links are highly polished which gives a nice classy tuch.
The bracelet ends with a typical butterfly clasp, which has no micro-adjustment at all. There’s also no half-link, but because the links are relatively short, you can still size the bracelet to a reasonably good fit. One big compliment to Oceaneva: this time the logo on the clasp is visible but much smaller and far less flashy than on the Deep Marine Explorer models, where it was distractingly large.
Let’s move on to the watch itself. First, the dimensions. It’s basically a square watch, but the corners are slightly cut, which technically makes it an octagon. The case side measures 41 mm, and the diagonal is just over 45 mm. Because of the beveled (and of course fixed) bezel, the top side of the bezel shrinks to 37 mm, while the cut diagonal comes down to 42 mm (measured from edge to edge of each trimmed corner). A nice touch is that the bezel is brushed, which gives a good contrast to the polished case. The crystal measures 28 mm across, and its diagonal is 34.5 mm.
The L2L is 45 mm.
As is usually the case with square watches, it looks larger on the wrist than a round 41 mm watch would. Visually, I’d say it wears closer to a 43–44 mm round piece. But thanks to the integrated bracelet and the relatively short L2L, it doesn’t appear overly large or awkward.
Now we get to the main measurement — the thickness. Oceaneva proudly labels the watch as ultra-thin. The thickness is 10.5 mm (measured including the crystal), which is definitely impressively slim for a watch with a Sellita SW200-1 movement and 100 m of water resistance. But in general, I wouldn’t call it ultra-thin. In the past two years alone, several automatic watches have come out that are noticeably thinner (like the Venezianico Arsenale).
The crown — as expected — is signed, and in the spirit of Oceaneva’s diver DNA (and the fact that it’s rated for 100 m WR), it’s a screw-down.
Let’s move to the dial. I’ll admit right away that the color left me a bit cold. I was slightly disappointed that the burgundy tone is much paler than what I expected based on the renders. What I do like, though, is the simple but elegant design with evenly pressed grooves. There are no unnecessary inscriptions, just the logo and the name. The hour markers are large and stylistically match the hands. For a truly elegant dress watch, it would’ve been better to keep just the logo without the text, make the markers shorter and thinner, and slim down the hands as well. On the other hand, legibility is excellent. Overall, the watch feels like a blend of dress and sport. A bit of diver DNA still “slipped in” here too.
The slightly thicker hands and markers have one great side effect — they’re generously filled with high-quality lume, which means excellent visibility and legibility at night on top of the already great daytime legibility. Even older eyes have zero trouble reading the time, all night long. What’s especially impressive is that it’s very easy to read even in semi-darkness, which is usually the biggest challenge. Really well done.
The caseback is sapphire, allowing a view of the Sellita movement. It’s completely generic; they didn’t even bother engraving their logo on the rotor. Which is why the display back is basically unnecessary — a steel plate would’ve made more sense and could’ve shaved off another millimeter of thickness. Around the glass you get the usual inscriptions, and the interesting part is the limited-edition marking with the serial number xx/50. Curiously, each color variant has its own xx/50 series, so the serial number alone doesn’t uniquely identify the watch unless you also know the dial color.
I won’t go into the movement itself — I’ll just mention that this one runs a bit less consistently than the ones in my previous Oceaneva watches. Over three days of continuous running, it shows around +10 seconds per day, which is still perfectly acceptable.
I already mentioned that the watch wears well, but a picture says more than a thousand words, so here it is on my 19 cm wrist.
The regular price of the watch is 700 EUR, and on top of that you have to add shipping and import fees, which brings the total to just under 900 EUR for an EU buyer. Considering the quality the watch offers, it’s definitely a fair price. Of course, it’s still expensive compared to what the preorder buyers paid.
Oceaneva clearly wants to make use of this new platform they’ve developed, because they’ve just opened preorders for another Tenius model, called the Tenius Calendar. It’s an annual calendar watch (showing the date, day of the week, month, and a 24h indicator), powered by the Miyota 9120 movement. What’s strange, though, is that they chose to pack this concept with so many complications that the Tenius is no longer “Ultra-Thin.” The new model will be almost 12 mm thick.
Because of this new “Calendar” model, Oceaneva has now added “Date” to the name of the existing Tenius, so we now have two models — the “Tenius Date” and the “Tenius Calendar” — even though when I ordered mine, it was simply called “Tenius.”
These “fake” chronographs aren’t really my cup of tea, so despite the attractive preorder price (315 EUR), I’ll be skipping this one. So yeah, there won’t be a new Oceaneva review this time :)
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