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THE BATTLE OF THE SD43's - 126600 - ARF v3 VS Noob v10

Sonofalich

James
Patron
Certified
10/6/19
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BATTLE OF THE SD43'S:

ARF V3 VS NOOB V10
(Latest editions as at January 2020)


Introduction:
I was curious at what the difference between the two models were. You can read about them... but it's not like holding both in your hand. So, I ordered both. The noob arrived today and it's time to do a review. This is my first review and comparison so I apologise if it's not very good... any suggestions/tips from older members are welcome.

Unfortunately, I've had to leave the noob in it's plastic wrapping. And my grubby fingers got onto a few photos... so apologies. I've broken each section down and I'll tell you my own personal thoughts and feelings about the watch.

So without further ado!

Obligatory wrist shot:
arf.jpg

noob.jpg



Side by Side shots (LEFT SIDE IS ARF ------------------------------- THE NOOB IS ON THE RIGHT Plastic wrapping too):
IMG-20200109-133124.jpg

IMG-20200109-133421.jpg

IMG-20200109-133946.jpg

IMG-20200109-133953.jpg

IMG-20200109-134004.jpg

IMG-20200109-134009.jpg

IMG-20200109-134028.jpg

IMG-20200109-134033.jpg

IMG-20200109-134040.jpg

IMG-20200109-134136.jpg

IMG-20200109-134225.jpg

IMG-20200109-134243.jpg

IMG-20200109-134300.jpg

IMG-20200109-134313.jpg

IMG-20200109-134317.jpg

IMG-20200109-134430.jpg

IMG-20200109-134435.jpg

IMG-20200109-134438.jpg

IMG-20200109-134500.jpg

IMG-20200109-134514.jpg

IMG-20200109-134515.jpg

IMG-20200109-134515-01.jpg



Sides/Flanks of the cases:
arf-side.jpg

noob-side.jpg


Bracelet / Clasp / Case-back: (ARF ALWAYS ON LEFT - NOOB ALWAYS ON RIGHT)
IMG-20200109-133729.jpg

IMG-20200109-133735.jpg

IMG-20200109-133739.jpg

IMG-20200109-133804.jpg

IMG-20200109-133816.jpg

IMG-20200109-133908.jpg


Crown / Crown-guards:
crown-arf-1.jpg

crown-noob1.jpg

IMG-20200109-134545.jpg

IMG-20200109-134551.jpg

IMG-20200109-134554.jpg

IMG-20200109-134556.jpg

Helium Escape Valve:



Lume:
IMG-20200109-133523.jpg

IMG-20200109-133530.jpg


Further ARF Pictures:
IMG-20200109-132847.jpg

IMG-20200109-132940.jpg

IMG-20200109-133157.jpg

IMG-20200109-133322.jpg

IMG-20200109-134020.jpg

IMG-20200109-134131.jpg

IMG-20200109-134236.jpg

IMG-20200109-134308.jpg

IMG-20200109-134452.jpg

IMG-20200109-134502.jpg


Further NOOB Pictures:
IMG-20200109-132857.jpg

IMG-20200109-132949.jpg

IMG-20200109-133138.jpg

IMG-20200109-133204.jpg

IMG-20200109-133211.jpg

IMG-20200109-133316.jpg

IMG-20200109-134017.jpg

IMG-20200109-134037.jpg

IMG-20200109-134233.jpg

IMG-20200109-134447.jpg

IMG-20200109-134507.jpg

IMG-20200109-134608.jpg



Review:
(This is my own personal opinion from having both in hand)
Summary: The ARF v3 is the better overall watch. If you can only buy one, buy the ARF v3.

Overall they are very very close, much closer than I had thought they would be. Overall quality on both feels excellent, the ARF wins on overall quality by a very small margin. The biggest difference is the bezel and its turning action. The ARF feels much more refined than the Noob, same with the feeling of winding the watch, and setting the time. The quality of the Asian movement in the ARF feels better. The case back on the ARF is also slightly thinner, it sits better on your wrist... again, marginal though. Don't read too much into that one.

Bracelet is hard to tell because I've kept the wrapping on, but looking at the links there is a small difference, ARF wins by a tiny margin. SEL's are slightly smaller on the ARF.

The clasp feel of the ARF is better, it feels different to the noob when you close and open it. Feels closer to Gen. This again is a very marginal difference, and I would stress to you that if you only are going to have one, it really is a flick of the coin which one is "better". As the noob does have some features that surpass the ARF.

Namely the dial, the triangle marker at 12 is slightly rounded, this is closer to Gen. The ARF is more pointy. The markers on the noob dial are better overall than ARF, both in lume colour (creamy) than white. But it's not THAT different. But the noob is better in this regard. Same with the hands, the noob hands are marginally better. Mainly due to the more creamy tone, they also look less flat, the arf hands look a bit too flat. Finally the Sea-Dweller red is better on the noob, closer to Genuine.

The crown-guards are also more accurate on the noob and I think even the crown itself feels slightly more genuine on the noob, again it is very VERY close. I must stress this throughout this review, I say one is better.... but it is tiny.

Bezel insert - it's a tie... the noob has more accurate font, but the lume pip isn't quite right. The ARF lume pip is perfect, but the font is slightly too big. But the quality of both inserts is great.

Crystal quality - tie - both are very good for reps, around 90% as good as the gen crystal.

Date wheel and dates - I was lucky on my ARF v3... all my dates are great. The noob is the same, so tie. But it's probably a win for noob in reality as ARF does seem to have bold fonts, just not on my example.

Overall you cannot go wrong. Choose either watch and just be aware of the flaws on either watch.
I'd give the ARF a 9/10 and the Noob a 8.5/10.

The overall quality and feel of the ARF outweighs the pro's of the noob in my personal opinion.

It's very close.

I have both watches... I'm going to take the noob dial and hands and put them into the ARF case. Is it worth it? No, certainly not. But I'm an idiot. I think it's also worth finding a decent watch smith who can shave down the crown guards a little.

I'll add a second post to this, when I've achieved that so you can see if it's worth doing. The answer probably is no.

Anyway thanks very much for reading this post and if you have any suggestions. Let me know!

James
 
Last edited:

Sonofalich

James
Patron
Certified
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Update:
Hybrid ARF v3 / Noob V10 (I can confirm in real life it looks better, but is it worth doing? Probably not in reality, but I am very very happy with it. Would recommend!)
  1. ARF v3 Base
  2. Noob Dial
  3. Noob Hands
  4. Gen SD43 Crystal supplied by interaktiv
  5. Gen Date wheel supplied by interaktiv
  6. Gen Crown / Tube supplied by interaktiv
  7. ETA 2824
  8. Crown Guards cut/resized to gen size
  9. Rehaut Polished (mine was a bit dull)
Pictures:
IMG-20200210-200956.jpg

IMG-20200210-201008.jpg

IMG-20200210-201011.jpg

IMG-20200210-201018.jpg

IMG-20200210-201027.jpg

IMG-20200210-201037.jpg

IMG-20200210-201043.jpg

IMG-20200210-201052.jpg

IMG-20200210-201056.jpg

IMG-20200210-201100.jpg

IMG-20200210-201106.jpg

IMG-20200210-201118.jpg
 
Last edited:

piNNoy

You're Saying I Can Sell?
30/10/19
40
13
0
California
You da man, thanks for taking the time for doing this!

I have an arf sub and arf sd43 and I loved my sd43. Loved the sd43 dial so much, I put it in my arf sub case. Kinda missing the big case of the sd43 now hahaha.

I get you on replacing dials. We can do whatever we want with these rep watches and not go too insane in our minds because we didn't pay gen prices.
 

Sonofalich

James
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The noob dial has blue shades ... is it me or ?

I think it might be a weird reaction between the crystal and my lightbox... in real life looking at it, even under light it doesn't have the same blue tones you see refracting off the crystal.
 

Hazing

And So It Begins... Again
9/5/19
5,185
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Double post....
 
Last edited:

Hazing

And So It Begins... Again
9/5/19
5,185
4,430
113
I had both of the last versions. Noob V9 and ARF v2 and I ended up selling the ARF. On the noob, the dial color was better and the font on the dial was better. The red “sea dweller” lettering was sharper and had a crisper red.

I remember taking and posting pics to try to illustrate the differences but they didn’t show up. It just looked like 2 pics of similar watches. But in person, imo there was a a lot of subtle, little differences.

ARF won on insert plating and bracelet but everything else I thought was noob all the way. Nice pics and review through.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Sonofalich

James
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I had both of the last versions. Noob V9 and ARF v2 and I ended up selling the ARF. On the noob, the dial color was better and the font on the dial was better. The red “sea dweller” lettering was sharper and had a crisper red.

I remember taking and posting pics to try to illustrate the differences but they didn’t show up. It just looked like 2 pics of similar watches. But in person, imo there was a a lot of subtle, little differences.

You're certainly right and the dial tone is a slight difference in real life compared to the pictures I took here, but it's still very marginal. Same for all text, however I will say the noob dial is better, but it is slight. It's not massive, but it is better and that's why I'm going to merge the two.

The biggest thing is the overall feel, the noob doesn't feel as well made. It's very good... it's probably 90% as good as the ARF in build quality. But the dial, the hands, the crown guards... they are better than ARF by quite a margin, that's why it makes up for the 90% overall build quality.

The clasp/bracelet/the case back/SEL's/Winding/Bezel movement are all flaws on the Noob...

But really, you can't go wrong with either! Pick the one that you can accept the flaws on. Great watches both of them! And I can't wait to make my franken... just waiting on Gen crystal and date wheel to come through.

Cheers guys and you're very welcome all of you that have thanked
 
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mrsullivan

Replicaddict
Staff member
Moderator Sales
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Great review thank you.
I had ARF V2 which was amazing, I read V3 was not much of an improvement compared to it but definitely ARF have a solid feel about their watches that can only be felt in hands.
Apart of that, good to know that Noob pushes its production up again on this version, competition between factories can only lead to better reps for us!

Envoyé de mon ELE-L29 en utilisant Tapatalk
 

Hazing

And So It Begins... Again
9/5/19
5,185
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The noob dial has blue shades ... is it me or ?

I’ve had both and both dials were black but different shades of black. And as a camera can’t capture all those visible differences on the spectrum, in a pic it was not very noticeable but in person it was. And I think that can be problematic but something we all do - chose and select a watch based on how it photographs instead of how it looks in person.

But in my experience (with the previous versions) the noob Black was closer to gen black than the ARF Black.
 

Rpacman

Horology Curious
2/7/19
11
0
1
Do the gas relieve valves differ at all? I know the arf is not that close to gen
 

Fritsspits

You're Saying I Can Sell?
18/2/19
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The Neterlands
I mostly wear Deep Sea’s and sometimes a normal SD. Always ARF, I think they are the best. So I am all aboard the conclusion.

i am still hoping ARF will make a Yacht-master 2 Some day :)
 
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