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Wear and tear of bezel on Expedition and Athlete vs the others

Looking at the Bezel of the different versions, I understand that Expedition and Athlete is steel while the others are ceramic.

The athlete is in "black" steel, meaning that marks will be quite visible.
The expedition is in pure steel, meaning that marks can be polished away.
The others are ceramic, meaning that they will not wear at all...

Comments?

0 Phoner over 6 years ago

Where have you seen that the bezels are made of steel? I thought the whole watch including bezel is titanium.

0 Teriemer over 6 years ago

It's been said in videos that the Athlete has a DLC coated titanium bezel. The Expedition is "just" titanium. So it's not steel.

0 widert over 6 years ago

Ok, but how is then hardness of titanium vs ceramic bezel?

0 Roland over 6 years ago

It's been said in videos that the Athlete has a DLC coated titanium bezel. The Expedition is "just" titanium. So it's not steel.

Yes. With one exception - the inner part of the Expedition bezel is PVD coated.

0 Teriemer over 6 years ago

What's PVD coating?

0 NYanakiev7 over 6 years ago

Hmmm, it's weird Garmin would use DLC on the cheaper watch and not on the more "premium" version. Still, with the bezel being titanium, it should be more durable than stainless steel by default...

0 nmyeti over 6 years ago

The Expedition is all titanium except for the small antenna portion sandwiched between the bottom titanium case and the titanium bezel. I would expect wear and tear to be the same as the non-dlc TI bezel on the Fenix 5 plus. The DLC on the Athlete should survive much better based on my experience with the TI DLC 5x plus. The ceramic bezel would have been a very welcome addition to the Expedition, but the watch is quite pretty with the polished TI finish.

That said, all Titanium is not harder than all steel. My 5x has held up great compared to my other Ti (non DLC) Garmin. If you are happy with how your 5 plus Ti has held up, then you are going to be fine with the Expedition. In theory you can service the bezel at a jeweler's shop if the Expedition starts looking a bit ragged. The compass markings are recessed into the bezel and coated, so I'd expect them to survive a polish just fine.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Yes. With one exception - the inner part of the Expedition bezel is PVD coated.

What do you actually mean by "inner part of the bezel" ? Thank you

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

What's PVD coating?

physical vapour deposition. Garmin uses titanium grade2, which is more common and "softer" variant of titanium used for watches. PVD coating is very hard and scratch-resistant, so I wonder, what part of the bezel is PVD coated.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

The Expedition is all titanium except for the small antenna portion sandwiched between the bottom titanium case and the titanium bezel. I would expect wear and tear to be the same as the non-dlc TI bezel on the Fenix 5 plus. The DLC on the Athlete should survive much better based on my experience with the TI DLC 5x plus. The ceramic bezel would have been a very welcome addition to the Expedition, but the watch is quite pretty with the polished TI finish.

That said, all Titanium is not harder than all steel. My 5x has held up great compared to my other Ti (non DLC) Garmin. If you are happy with how your 5 plus Ti has held up, then you are going to be fine with the Expedition. In theory you can service the bezel at a jeweler's shop if the Expedition starts looking a bit ragged. The compass markings are recessed into the bezel and coated, so I'd expect them to survive a polish just fine.

PVD coated titanium can be even harder and more scratch-resistant than ceramic. Do you mean that only markings and numbers at the bezel are coated and the vast majority of the bezel is "raw" uncoated titanium grade2? Thank you