Regarding the Aquanaut, last time I already did a comparative review of the green Aquanaut 5168G, comparing the 3K factory and the BBF factory. As you could all see, the BBF factory came out on top. Today, I’m bringing you another comparison review of the grey Aquanaut from DDF, 3K, and PPF. This grey Aquanaut should be the most popular among all Aquanaut models. After reading this article, I hope you can find one that suits you.

The 5167 Aquanaut is very popular thanks to its sporty style and understated grey color. In the replica watch market, PPF (also known as ZF) was the first factory to produce this replica watch. However, they used a Japanese Miyota 9015 movement, adding a decorated plate on top of this base movement to make it look authentic. Later, the 3K factory introduced a super clone 324 movement. Since they had signed a three-year exclusivity agreement with the movement manufacturer, only 3K could use this movement at the time, allowing them to dominate nearly the entire high end replica Aquanaut watch market. After the agreement ended, many factories gained access to the super clone 324 movement, including the DDF factory introduced today. Below, let’s take a look at how the grey Aquanaut from these three factories perform.

Aquanaut Replicas

Let us see their case size first.

3K Aquanaut Case Diameter
3K Aquanaut Case Thickness
3K Case Thickness
DDF Aquanaut Case Diameter
DDF Aquanaut Case Thickness
DDF Aquanaut Thickness
PPF Aquanaut Case Diameter
PPF Aquanaut Case Thickness
PPF Case Thickness

We can see that the Aquanaut from PPF has the thickest case, which is up to 8.7mm, this is because PPF uses Miyota movement, which is thicker than the 324 movement used in 3K and DDF.

The case of Aquanaut 5167 from 3K is only 8.3mm, which is the thinnest among the three watches.

DDF vs 3KF
Left watch is from DDF, the right one is from 3K

See the two watches above, the dial on the left watch has more pronounced radial brush strokes.

DDF Date Font vs 3KF Date Font

The date font looks slightly bigger and thicker on DDF Aquanaut. By the way, on the DDF dial, the color of the luminous filling material is white, while on the 3K it is cyan.

DDF 324 Movement Engravings
DDF 324 Movement Engravings

The movement engravings on DDF Aquanaut are deeply engraved.

3KF Movement Engravings
3KF Movement Engravings

The Aquanaut from 3KF has shallow engravings on the movement plate, looks like being printed, other than engraved.

Gear on 324 Movement

Look where I’m pointing with the pen. That is a small functioning gear, which is only found on the super clone 324 movement. The movement used in the PPF Aquanaut in the picture below does not have this gear. This is also a little trick to tell whether your seller has actually sent you a watch with a super clone 324 movement.

PPF 9015 Movement

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