I bought some of the new 4th Element 5mm gloves last week and got the chance to try them at the weekend in Wraysbury on a course I was teaching.

Designed in 5mm stretch neoprene, they were certainly warm - the seams have been sealed to minimise water penetration and they are were very easy to put on as there is just the glove and no fancy velcro.
Normally I struggle with 5mm gloves, sometimes getting hand cramp and prefer to use drygloves but these were a revelation- the fit was really good, dexterity was excellent- doing demos of shutdowns I had plenty of feedback from the gloves. Whilst the water was warm enough to go without gloves I wanted to try these out as I’m doing some deeper stuff at the weekend.

Two dives - about 90minutes each one, and the gloves performed superbly. The coated seams really do cut back on water penetration and my hands were very warm during the dives. The feel is great and the texture of the gloves provided a good grip.

So I will be using these on a couple of 60m dives at the weekend and plan on using these to see what they are like compared to the rolocks. I’ll post a follow up

My initial thoughts are that these are really good gloves that offer superior levels of feedback compared to normal 5mm gloves and that they are really comfortable. For those of us that are looking at alternatives to dry gloves then it might be worth getting a pair of these instead.