I've searched all over the internet and I couldn't find a direct comparison of the two so now that I just received my 243 Noob V2, I'll try to compare it with the H factory the best I can.
Disclaimer: I'm not a photographer, I don't have a light box and I'm using a cell phone camera. I don't have the skills or experience to write something like this, English is not my first language, hell it's not even my second language. I've never held the original 243 in my hands and I am no PAM expert so here it goes :
Dark strap is H factory and light strap noob factory
THE CASE: There are small differences between the two cases, the main one and clearly noticeable is the grit of the brush, you can easily tell them apart just by that. The noob case has a really fine brush, looks more sandblasted than brushed with a more matte look. The brush grit on the H case is a little bigger, not by much, but it doesn't have that matte look, it looks more metallic, shiny and rough, which I think is more appropriate for this type of watch, looks more gen like from what I've seen in the gen pics.
The noob case is cut very precise, the lines and curves are all straight, the H is not far behind but in some areas it looks a little waved, may be from the finish though.
The Winner : I'll go with the noob , seems to be cut more precise, but a noob case with H brush would look great.
THE He VALVE: To my untrained eyes both seem to have the same shape. The font looks a little thicker on Noob
The Winner: The difference is barely noticeable in real life so it's a tie
THE LUGS: The H has some type of bevel at the end of the lugs, something not seen on the gen. Noob has the correct shape.
The noob push buttons are a little closer to the edge which is more gen like. But here's the problem, it might have something to do with the poor rep QC, but on the H the pins and buttons worked butter smooth, on the noob however it took a fair amount of fight and I thought I'm gonna scratch the watch trying to get the pins in and out. I had to use a jewelers file to smooth out the mechanism to make it work like the one on the H.
THE WINNER : I say it's a tie, that bevel might not be to gen like , but the frustration provided by those push buttons had me all nutted up.
THE CASE BACK : The H has a clear, deep engraving and the metallic look helps a lot .On the noob the engraving doesn't seem so deep and the matte look doesn't help at all:
The winner: The H looks much better
THE CROWN GUARD: Although I had to go through 3 sets of QC pics to find this noob CG , the crown guard and lever on noob are perfect, gen like bevel where the CG meets the case, gen like shaped lever, lever perfectly flush with the GC, correct REG. T.M. engraving position .
On H the bevel isn't that noticeable, the lever doesn't have the correct shape and it's not perfectly flush with the CG . REG TM engraving is closer to the edge. The crown guard does fit a little better against the case on the H though.
The 1000m engraving on the lever does look good on both of them.
H lever does snap into place a lot better than the noob , noob has almost no snap, problem I saw a lot on these forums.
The winner : Although the H snaps into place a lot nicer and I think it does it's intended purpose of water proofing better, the noob looks so much better , so the winner is Noob.
THE BEZEL: H bezel has 120 clicks, it rotates nice with a nice sound to it but it is loose compared to the 60 click tight noob bezel. The Noob bezel rotates harder but it snaps into place with precision.
The markers and fonts are about the same.
There was a big deal about the bezel teeth having the correct shape on the noob , I can't really tell the difference in real life but indeed the noob has a more gen like shape.
The winner : Noob , looks almost the same but it rotates nicer.
THE PEARL: Both pearls are flat, the only difference is the size of the pearl and ring that surrounds it.
The H pearl seems spot on with what's on the T dial version of the gen.
The noob is closer to what's on the L dial . This being an L dial replica, noob is closer to gen but not quite there as the ring is smaller and pearl to big.
The winner : Tie as I've seen both sizes on different versions of the gen. H looks like the T dial , Noob like L dial.
THE CRYSTAL : Both single AR coated . The AR on H is a little better but only if you look really close.
The cyclops are still rep grade and both are distorting quite a bit. H has a little more distortion as it has a higher magnifying power. Noob's magnifying power is smaller and apparently closer to gen
The winner : Noob
THE DIAL : The diffrences are very small but there are a few.
The Panerai logo print on the Noob is thicker and has some volume to it which is not necessary good thing as he thickens of the print varies, but only noticeable under a magnifier . The H has a smooth, thinner more precise flat print which looks better and more high end.
The numerals is where it gets bad. H numerals are thinner and perfect printed with a nice volume to them. Noob's numerals are thicker, rugged looking and have a white printed base on which the lume is painted. They look rough and the lume is not equally distributed or centered to the white base , noticeable when the lume glows. The noob numerals just look like they are not part of the watch compared to the nice H numerals.
The markers on noob are also smaller with smaller lume dots, noticeable when both glow side by side. The rings surrounding the dots are more visible on noob. H markers look better and more gen like with big lume dots and discrete rings..
The hands are pretty much the same but the noob hands are more concave where they sit on the cannon pin making them distort the reflections more, the H hands are flater with a nice flat reflection
The cannon pin is is flat on noob , little rounded on H.
The winner : The H dial, markers and print look better and closer to gen , it also has a more high end feel to it. If I had the skills to swap the dials without damaging the hands I'd swap the H dial into the noob case .
THE LUME : Both of them have good C3 lume on the markers, they keep up well with my other superlumed watches . H markers have bigger lume dots visible when both of them are side by side.
The numerals is where it gets bad, while H has perfect printed and lumed numerals with same color as the markers, the noob has some sub par lume not evenly distributed with jagged edges.
The numerals on H do decrease in brightness faster than the markers as they don't have the same amount of lume, but the ones on the noob go out in minutes and not evenly.
The winner : Clear winner H
To compare the brightness I've used a superlumed 111 and a bag of brightest available lume powder.
From left to right : H , Noob, 111 , bag of lume
minutes later the numerals on noob have very little glow left
Here you can see how nice and even the lume is on H
and the jagged edges on Noob
Conclusion: Both of them are nice watches with pros and cons. On the wrist they feel about the same with minimal differences between them. But if you have OCD, noob is the way to go, although not perfect it is a more finished watch. Would've been nice if it had the H factory dial though.
Disclaimer: I'm not a photographer, I don't have a light box and I'm using a cell phone camera. I don't have the skills or experience to write something like this, English is not my first language, hell it's not even my second language. I've never held the original 243 in my hands and I am no PAM expert so here it goes :
Dark strap is H factory and light strap noob factory
THE CASE: There are small differences between the two cases, the main one and clearly noticeable is the grit of the brush, you can easily tell them apart just by that. The noob case has a really fine brush, looks more sandblasted than brushed with a more matte look. The brush grit on the H case is a little bigger, not by much, but it doesn't have that matte look, it looks more metallic, shiny and rough, which I think is more appropriate for this type of watch, looks more gen like from what I've seen in the gen pics.
The noob case is cut very precise, the lines and curves are all straight, the H is not far behind but in some areas it looks a little waved, may be from the finish though.
The Winner : I'll go with the noob , seems to be cut more precise, but a noob case with H brush would look great.
THE He VALVE: To my untrained eyes both seem to have the same shape. The font looks a little thicker on Noob
The Winner: The difference is barely noticeable in real life so it's a tie
THE LUGS: The H has some type of bevel at the end of the lugs, something not seen on the gen. Noob has the correct shape.
The noob push buttons are a little closer to the edge which is more gen like. But here's the problem, it might have something to do with the poor rep QC, but on the H the pins and buttons worked butter smooth, on the noob however it took a fair amount of fight and I thought I'm gonna scratch the watch trying to get the pins in and out. I had to use a jewelers file to smooth out the mechanism to make it work like the one on the H.
THE WINNER : I say it's a tie, that bevel might not be to gen like , but the frustration provided by those push buttons had me all nutted up.
THE CASE BACK : The H has a clear, deep engraving and the metallic look helps a lot .On the noob the engraving doesn't seem so deep and the matte look doesn't help at all:
The winner: The H looks much better
THE CROWN GUARD: Although I had to go through 3 sets of QC pics to find this noob CG , the crown guard and lever on noob are perfect, gen like bevel where the CG meets the case, gen like shaped lever, lever perfectly flush with the GC, correct REG. T.M. engraving position .
On H the bevel isn't that noticeable, the lever doesn't have the correct shape and it's not perfectly flush with the CG . REG TM engraving is closer to the edge. The crown guard does fit a little better against the case on the H though.
The 1000m engraving on the lever does look good on both of them.
H lever does snap into place a lot better than the noob , noob has almost no snap, problem I saw a lot on these forums.
The winner : Although the H snaps into place a lot nicer and I think it does it's intended purpose of water proofing better, the noob looks so much better , so the winner is Noob.
THE BEZEL: H bezel has 120 clicks, it rotates nice with a nice sound to it but it is loose compared to the 60 click tight noob bezel. The Noob bezel rotates harder but it snaps into place with precision.
The markers and fonts are about the same.
There was a big deal about the bezel teeth having the correct shape on the noob , I can't really tell the difference in real life but indeed the noob has a more gen like shape.
The winner : Noob , looks almost the same but it rotates nicer.
THE PEARL: Both pearls are flat, the only difference is the size of the pearl and ring that surrounds it.
The H pearl seems spot on with what's on the T dial version of the gen.
The noob is closer to what's on the L dial . This being an L dial replica, noob is closer to gen but not quite there as the ring is smaller and pearl to big.
The winner : Tie as I've seen both sizes on different versions of the gen. H looks like the T dial , Noob like L dial.
THE CRYSTAL : Both single AR coated . The AR on H is a little better but only if you look really close.
The cyclops are still rep grade and both are distorting quite a bit. H has a little more distortion as it has a higher magnifying power. Noob's magnifying power is smaller and apparently closer to gen
The winner : Noob
THE DIAL : The diffrences are very small but there are a few.
The Panerai logo print on the Noob is thicker and has some volume to it which is not necessary good thing as he thickens of the print varies, but only noticeable under a magnifier . The H has a smooth, thinner more precise flat print which looks better and more high end.
The numerals is where it gets bad. H numerals are thinner and perfect printed with a nice volume to them. Noob's numerals are thicker, rugged looking and have a white printed base on which the lume is painted. They look rough and the lume is not equally distributed or centered to the white base , noticeable when the lume glows. The noob numerals just look like they are not part of the watch compared to the nice H numerals.
The markers on noob are also smaller with smaller lume dots, noticeable when both glow side by side. The rings surrounding the dots are more visible on noob. H markers look better and more gen like with big lume dots and discrete rings..
The hands are pretty much the same but the noob hands are more concave where they sit on the cannon pin making them distort the reflections more, the H hands are flater with a nice flat reflection
The cannon pin is is flat on noob , little rounded on H.
The winner : The H dial, markers and print look better and closer to gen , it also has a more high end feel to it. If I had the skills to swap the dials without damaging the hands I'd swap the H dial into the noob case .
THE LUME : Both of them have good C3 lume on the markers, they keep up well with my other superlumed watches . H markers have bigger lume dots visible when both of them are side by side.
The numerals is where it gets bad, while H has perfect printed and lumed numerals with same color as the markers, the noob has some sub par lume not evenly distributed with jagged edges.
The numerals on H do decrease in brightness faster than the markers as they don't have the same amount of lume, but the ones on the noob go out in minutes and not evenly.
The winner : Clear winner H
To compare the brightness I've used a superlumed 111 and a bag of brightest available lume powder.
From left to right : H , Noob, 111 , bag of lume
minutes later the numerals on noob have very little glow left
Here you can see how nice and even the lume is on H
and the jagged edges on Noob
Conclusion: Both of them are nice watches with pros and cons. On the wrist they feel about the same with minimal differences between them. But if you have OCD, noob is the way to go, although not perfect it is a more finished watch. Would've been nice if it had the H factory dial though.
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