Rolex Day-Date vs Datejust is an interesting comparison; they might look similar to some when in fact they have totally different personalities. To make it more compelling we would compare the ones with their respective green dials.
The Shades of Green
Green is associated with nature, wealth & tranquility, it’s also one of the national colors of Australia, many other nations & sporting clubs. If you’ve ever admired the Mint Green in Rolex Datejust and wondered how different or similar it is to the Olive Green of Day-Date, that’s something which has intrigued me as well. While you can obviously see and envisage the difference in the shade of the green seeing just the photos on Rolex’s website. You can’t really appreciate how different they are until you put them side by side. While at it we could also compare the Datejust 41 to Day Date 40. How small or similar the Day-Date wears as compared to the Datejust 41, is what we will dig into here, so we get to know the best of both worlds – with the dials that are evergreen.
White Gold vs Stainless Steel
Both being spectacular in their own way, when you put them both side by side, you can notice the warmness in the shade of green on the Day-Date compared to the Mint green on the DJ which is cooler or lesser warm. If you look closely, the White gold in DD40 is also slightly warmer than the silver of Oyster-steel you get from Rolex in DJ41. The white gold Day-Date, which is considered a sleeper by many, gets you a watch which is not as yellow as Everose or as silver as stainless steel. To further demonstrate this, if you put Rolex’s oyster steel, white gold and Everose together, you can see how the white gold sits in between the stainless and Everose in warmness of the shade. While it is subtle but to say that the white gold looks like SS is a bit of an inaccurate opinion – at least to my eyes.
The Dimensions
Speaking of the dimensional comparison, if you tried the DJ41 and wondered if the DD would wear slightly smaller than the DJ, purely because Rolex market it as 40mm.
Bezel: Measuring the size of DJ41 at the outer extremity of the bezel, it is 39.2mm, while measuring the same on the Day Date, it is 38.7mm, which means that the face of the watch is about 0.5mm smaller so the Day Date will indeed look smaller than the Datejust 41 .
Dial size: the crystal on the DJ41 is 32.7mm compared to the crystal on the DD40 which is 32.2mm, if you found the dial on the DJ41 a touch too bog for your liking, the DD40 will have you covered and will offer you the size that cannot be found in the Datejust range in any size and material.
Wearability: Measuring the lug to lug on the DJ41, it is 47.3mm compared to the DD40, the lug to lug is 47.2mm. Factoring in some human error and tool inaccuracies, it’s safe to say that both the DJ41 and DD40 have the same lug height i.e. while the DD40 will look smaller on the wrist, if the DJ41 wears big and flares out of your wrist, the DD40 will do no better and will wear the same.
Bracelet: Both watches come with 21mm bracelet, although the bracelet tapers down a lot more on the DJ41 compared to the DD where the bracelet remains relatively flat and tapers down to 17mm vs 15.4mm on the DJ41. The DD comes with a hidden clasp so the bracelet width doesn’t change at the clasp.
Weight: Of these watches with all links on, the DJ41 is 134 grams, vs the DD040 which is 210grams, and rightfully so as white gold is a heavier metal and has the broader bracelet at the clasp, you feel a lot more heftiness and weight on the wrist with the Day-Date.
Where is the 40 and 41 then?
An interesting character, if you measure the dimension of the case on both of these watches from 2 to 8 o clock position, they’re both true to their sizes that is, 41mm and 40mm, so again, while the DD40 will look and feel smaller due to smaller size and smaller face, it will wear the same due to the same lug to lug as the DJ41.
Your Pick?
As you can see, they are so close and still separated by miles, from the subtle and warm tone of achievement to the sparkle of boldness and steel. Frankly speaking, there’s no comparison, the Day-Date is just a class apart from the Datejust and is best suited for special events and activities and to take the pleasure and pride in your wrist roll. Whereas the Datejust is the everyday watch in steel, the one in which you can enjoy fine watchmaking and horology while maintaining elegance, class and delivering a statement that YOU value and appreciate attention to detail & finer things in life.
Watch our full 4K and high resolution comparison video between these two models, along with wrist shots on our YT channel, as follows;
