The Breitling Watch Source Forums

What is the difference between Titanium and Zirconium, and as a consumer do you have a preference, and why ?

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B4B GMT Midnight Carbon LE
IWC Vintage Ingenieur RG

That's a pretty broad question. I assume with zirconium you actually mean zirconium dioxide, and more generally ceramics, which have a number of advantages - flexibility in colour, high scratch resistance, high dent resistance, etc but has historically suffered from being rather brittle. That's getting better and it's a very resilient option for cases.

Titanium is again difficult to generalise - grade 2 is very different from grade 5. It's light, it's scratch resistant (grade 5) and also works well for cases.

Can you be a bit more specific about what you are looking for?

Thanks, Roff.

My interest is generated from shopping for a Hublot Classic Fusion 42 mm with diamonds bezel.
Only two days ago it was made of Zirconium (Hublot's website), and the newer edition is now being made from Titanium.
Looking for information and guidance, I thought this could be an interesting general topic for discussion.
I don't know which grade is Hublot's titanium.

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B4B GMT Midnight Carbon LE
IWC Vintage Ingenieur RG

Nice response. Saved me some googling time.

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-RJ

Well one can assume Hublot probably uses grade 5 Titanium with the prices they charge but we all know their movements besides a few in-house are nothing to write home about.

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"I don't got the bright watch I got the right watch" -Jay Z

I read recently on a review site that Hublot were using Grade 2 ti for their Oceanographic 4000m diver. Bit of a surprise if they are as it's a softer grade than grade 5..... Maybe the reviewer go it wrong.

On the ceramic/ti side of things, Roff has covered it already, although I would say that for me I'd always take the ceramic option over to if there's a choice. The brittleness of ceramic is somewhat over-egged IMO, as the force required to "shatter" a ceramic case would absolutely damage a steel or ti case under the same circumstances. Yes the damage may be more severe - I've seen a couple of examples where a whole lug may be snapped after dropping it from a height onto a concrete floor - but if you applied the same drop to a steel case you would see a huge dent in the case. At the end of the day, damage is damage in my book. IMO, the scratch resistance more than makes up for any additional brittleness to make ceramic the ideal choice. (Worth also noting that ceramic is much heavier than ti, if that's a consideration).

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Of those two choices I'd buy a different watch

I don't know what ceramic or titanium is like as a setting for diamonds, so maybe that is part of the reasoning for the change, but generally I think ceramic is a better all round material if you don't need absolute lightness, and especially if Hublot is only using grade 2.