Hold on tight you guys, this one is gonna be a long one with a nice dose of colorful comparisons
guess who knocked my door yesterday??
First thing first, The reps looked great in the little air sucked nylon cases they provided, not the greatest looking, but it serves the purpose, definitely will be used when I move around my watches..
So, here where we start.. I have to disclose something, unfortunately, my BP 5227G with white dial that I bought as the first rep in the series, went dead on me few weeks back.. it's like, it knew I have made my decision to purchase the new ZF rep. so in the purpose of this detailed post, I will not include it with the three, however, I will put up some detailed pics of the new ZF one, but no comparison, as to be honest, it shares the same features with the other BP and ZF reps..
so let's go..
Below you will see the R version with the famous grey CF strap that went trending all over is the BP, the brown strap with the ZF tag is obviously!! you know!!! ZF maybe??
and same goes with the G version, the BP is with the Gen PP strap.
Now from the first very first look when having them side by side from a distance, and perhaps even before taking off the wrap on the new reps, I can totally notice that the
PATEK PHILIPPE logo is bold on the ZF compared to the BP, and honestly, I have seen the gen in person, it is not that bold and in your face.. when I was looking at it while taking the pictures, it was really bothering me, as you can not un see it, and especially that my eyes are used to the BP logo.. but in all honesty, when I wear the rep, and look at my wrist, it's not that bad, yes it is bad when we have both BP and ZF next to each other, but I can see how it won't be a real issue down the line wearing the rep, especially when pimping it with the CF or gen PP straps.. you will forget about it and won't see it, in the other hand, people will notice that it is a PP more now as the boldness and the sharpness of the logo makes it much easier to spot from far away, so aaahh this could be a plus for some people, been wearing the black dial now for few hours, and the logo font doesn't even occur to me.
here is a pic of a gen so you can see what I am talking about... the gen font boldness sits in between the BP and the ZF
So let's start the comparison shall we? I will only compare the 5227R to save time, as the rest will have similar results..
From what I have been seeing with my eyes, the ZF has more rounded shape to the rep, now BP is more sharp on edges, so the ZF has more flow like the gen, I never noticed this to be honest on the BP until I put them next to each other.. the DW window on the ZF has thinner depth, the BP is a tad deeper, which again gives it to the ZF as it looks closer to gen.. the color of the dial is immaculate.. what a great color.. ZF nailed it.. again I wore the gen in an AD once, and now seeing the ZF dial, the color is perfect, where BP is way too white. forget about the pics on the net with different lighting, the color is perfect in real life.
now the side profiles
As you can see the hinges on the side for the ZF are much closer to gen than the BP..
then the back of the reps..
only thing I have noticed, which goes for the whole reps is that the ZF shows much better engraving process, deeper and more clear, that goes for the engravings on the case and buckle
The movements are of course night and day.. mind you, you need to know that the BP is the first generation that came out, the none decorated movement, I took those because I never cared for the decorated movements as they tend to thicken up the rep, and the gen is pretty thin.. so I was very satisfied with the thickness of the BP, and didn't worry about the fake decoration, but when I saw the decoration on the ZF, I was very scared that now, the rep is thicker, to my surprise, those factories advanced soooooo much since the creation of the BP 5227, that now with the decoration, it is thinner than the one without decoration,, who would of thought?? (more over on the thickness comparison later). Now when it came for the hinges, the ZF is spot on like the gen hinges.. where BP as good as they did, the hinges were a bit curvy and not executed exactly like gen, where ZF just nailed it.. I know it's not a big deal, but it's a plus for sure, and made me realize the efforts put into making things so perfect.
Let's move on..
The higher level of engraving made me want to also use the ZF buckle when changing the strap to the CF strap, in the beginning before seeing this, I thought, it's the same size buckle, I will just leave the BP buckle on the strap when I change it, but after seeing the engraving quality on the ZF buckle, made my mind to also change it.. and that made me discover one more thing in the process.. see below
While changing the buckle I realized that ZF actually went through the trouble of adding the rose gold springbar, where my old BP rose gold buckle was carrying a steel springbar.. I mean, ZF is just out of this world, I can't think of any Chinese factory that would sink in this level of detail, it's crazy how just in that moment, I realized that when you see the buckle from the side, the RG spring would make the buckle seamless and rich as the springbar completes it and no other color would disrupt the fluidity, where the BP as small of a detail as it is, and as expected from rep manufacturers, when I look at it now, I see this dot in the middle of the buckle that looks a bit odd.. ZF you get 5 stars for the extra mile you have gone for finish quality..
Now let's start comparing measurements shall we? Before we do, one point I want to raise here, the comparison is based on the first generation BP 5227, which as I said before, none decorated, the versions that came after, BP jumped on the decorated movement wagon, and added the fake bridges as it became a fad since then, and the result was getting a thicker rep than the version that I have.. so for the measurements, you need to know that the BP I have is the thinnest 5227 out there, and if you want to compare it with the later versions that have the decorated movement, expect BP to be even thicker.
half mm from the gen.. great job from both on that, and who knows, if I had the gen, it might be the exact 38.5mm, when they state it's 39 for rounding up purposes..
And here was the surprise, measuring the thickness of the two reps, ZF having the decorated movement, and BP without, I realized that the ZF is thinner than the BP.. huge advancement in the rep world.. kudos to the Chinese.. doing a really great job.. that measurement is for the rep with the top of the crystal.. having slept on it last night, I was thinking to myself, but the gen stats are for the thickness without the crystal, so today I pulled out the BP again, though without a strap now as I changed it yesterday to the ZF, and as I am wearing the ZF 5227G (which is the same measurement of the R version) I decided to give it another go to measure them without the crystal to see if it comes close to the gen of 9.24mm thickness.. and here is the result..
BP below:
And ZF below:
BRAVOOOOOOOOO ZF.. confirmed, thickness of the ZF including a lovely looking decorated movement is 9.2mm same as gen.. this is for me the most exciting news today.. diameter 39mm, and thickness 9.2mm with decorated movement just like gen.. all I can say is WOW!!
Let's keep going with the stats for lug and buckle..
Another star for spot on lug size like gen
and this conclude the comparison.. the ZF factory went out of their way to produce something spectacular, no holding back, paying attention to details.. definitely replicating a gen that they had in their hands.. the BP rep is very very good.. especially the first version as it was at the time the thinnest, and we all know that this particular watch is so sleek and classic, the best element in it was the size and how thin it sits on your wrist, making the new versions higher, and as much as it was not a big deal, ZF showed us that it could be done.. bravo... my only note is the thickness of the logo font, I wish it was done a bit thinner, to resemble the gen, but like I said, on the wrist, the more bold logo is hardly noticeable..
now I will put out some pics of the 5227G white and black dial to make this review show all but the 5227Y which I was never a fan of unfortunately, so I didn't get it. enjoy the pics..
and the black dial on the PP gen strap.. unfortunately, the gen strap I got my hands on is 19mmX14mm, so as you can see there is a bit of gap with the buckle.. but that doesn't bother me, in the end, it's hosting a Patek Philippe strap, and to me is more joyful..
I hope you enjoined it.. my last comment.. great rep, hugeeeeeeeeeeeee upgrade, worth the money for sure, and if you host the rep with a PP gen strap or Camille Fournet strap, you got your self the closest rep to gen ever produced.
kind regards,
Godfathar
