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WatchGecko •

Is TAG Heuer As Good As Rolex?

One of the great privileges of being a watch journalist is time. Not just the appreciation of it and the magnificent machines our more practical peers within the industry dedicate their lives to crafting, but also the time we get to spend studying brands, their history, their messaging, and, of course, their products. Being professionally engaged in a pursuit I would obsess over as a hobby were it not my livelihood means I don’t just have the opportunity and access to learn about every brand as...
WatchGecko •

Top IWC Pilot’s Watches In 2024 | WatchGecko

It is telling that the brand’s most celebrated complication — the Kurt Klaus-designed Perpetual Calendar that has been delighting watch fans the world over for four decades now — has been deployed on so many Fliegers despite the marriage of aviation and long-term date-keeping not being the most natural of pairings. IWC knows what its customers want and, by giving it to them, has almost created an accidental sub-category of ultra-complicated Pilot’s watches.
But not everything has to be a chronog...
WatchGecko •

The Top Brands at Geneva Watch Days 2024 | WatchGecko

With two major fairs of almost equal size and importance every year, spaced just five months apart, it feels like we’re never too far away from the next spate of releases. It’s fair to ask, therefore, if one can have too much of a good thing. However, rather than overwhelm the watch-curious public, brands seem to be settling into the groove, choosing one fair to release their showstoppers, and the other to consolidate whatever came before or preface what is soon to come.
While Geneva Watch Days,...
WatchGecko •

Straum Jan Mayen Hands-On Review | WatchGecko

I’ve always taken a great deal of pride in having an eye for the next big thing. When Straum burst onto the scene, taking over Instagram with a vengeance with a series of intriguing paid ads, my interest was more than piqued.
I thought at that moment that this new independent brand out of Norway showed an incredible touch and sensitivity when it came to the design of its first model, the Opphav. A couple of weeks after seeing it online for the first time, I had production samples in my hands. Tu...
WatchGecko •

Comparing the new Christopher Ward C65 Dune GMT with the Automatic Ver

The Christopher Ward C65 Dune Automatic is the perfect GADA watch, right? Unlike many true Go Anywhere, Do Anything watches, it has the ability (especially on a bracelet) to flirt with high-society functions thanks to its muted dial tones and under-the-radar sizing (38 mm diameter and 11.7 mm thickness). It’s price (£750) is borderline scandalous. Other watch brands must look at models like this from Christopher Ward and throw their hands up in exasperation. And so they should. When you have a h...
WatchGecko •

Top Five Hublot Models In 2024

Hublot gets a lot of stick. The brand’s mainstream but arguably undeserved reputation as a brassy, brazen, baron of bombast has proven hard to dispel in the minds of the masses. To this end, Hublot is perhaps its own worst enemy. Never one to shy away from a bit of self-promotion, the brand aligns itself with attention-grabbing artists and elite sportspeople, chucking millions at globally visible event sponsorship.
Spirit of Big Bang Sang Bleu Sapphire - Credit Hublot
Say what you want about the...
WatchGecko •

The Top Five IWC Watches In 2024

Everyone loves a good list article as it’s a chance to reinforce your own opinions via the clearly ranked opinions of others.


It’s a fun exercise, but it’s not always as easy to compile a good, well-reasoned, and possibly even thought-provoking list as you might think.
Deciding on your favourite out of a bunch of things that you don’t own can be a revelatory exercise. The fact you don’t own something is, in itself, a good place to start.
Hands-on with the IWC Portugieser Yacht...
WatchGecko •

Echo/Neutra AVERAU 39 Moon phase “Big Moon” White

Creativity in watchmaking is rarer than it ought to be. While the challenges of doing something truly new in a saturated industry that, by the nature and function of its products, requires designers to work with a small and restrictive canvas are obvious, a sideways approach to watch design is still possible at an accessible price point, if only one is able to decouple their way of thinking from the norm.
Research and development are perilously expensive — costs that, should a brand shoulder the...
WatchGecko •

Top Five Zenith Models In 2024

Over the past few years, Zenith, under the thoughtful and effective stewardship of recently departed CEO Julien Tornare, succeeded in revamping its catalogue to include a healthy mix of classic and progressive models that repositioned the brand well for the future. The headline-grabbing releases in the Defy collection seen during Watches and Wonders 2024 have been great at causing a stir, but Zenith’s real strength is in its highly-regarded chronographs that continue to set the standard in their...
WatchGecko •

Top Five Ulysse Nardin Models In 2024

Everyone has their favourite brands, but not every favourite is created equal.


I have my favourite brands to wear (Laventure, Fortis, Straum, NOMOS, for example), my favourite brands to extol (Glashütte Original, WH&T, Czapek, and so on), and my favourite brands I adore for the role they’ve played in the formation of the watch collecting hobby (Swatch, Rolex, and Ulysse Nardin, to name a key trio). 
Despite believing that Ulysse Nardin’s Freak, released around the turn of the 2...
WatchGecko •

The Top 10 Swiss Watch Brands in 2024

Imagine being asked to choose the Top 10 Swiss Watch brands in 2024! Imagine it! Where would you start? There are so many to choose from, assembling anything remotely close to a definitive list is impossible, but, at the very least, we can hope any such attempt (futile as it may be) will at least inspire debate (so let us know what you would have done differently in the comments below).
To give this list some semblance of structure, I’m going to break it down into ascending price points starting...
WatchGecko •

Is Tudor As Good As Rolex?

Ask almost anyone with brothers or sisters and you’ll find that sibling rivalry is a very real thing. As humans, our youths are often dominated by jostling for position in one’s family, friend group, or society en masse until we find our place. We don’t have the benefit of being birthed as fully formed operators. We have no set goals from day one. We are empty vessels, blank canvases, that become filled with experience and embellished by the world around us as time passes.
But when it comes to r...
WatchGecko •

Doxa 300 White Pearl Review | WatchGecko

It’s not like Doxa hasn’t produced extremely affordable alternatives to the Sub 300T and Sub 300 before, but they never captured the spirit or style of the brand as successfully as Doxa’s eternal icons.
That all changed with the Sub 200T drop. The brand wasn’t just resting on its laurels and creating nonsensically niche iterations of its bestsellers (which seems to be exactly what many of the bigger, clearly clueless brands have been doing). Doxa has made tangible (and welcome) changes to a belo...
WatchGecko •

Top 5 Longines' Watches from the Classic Collection | WatchGecko

There are some assignments that cause me to leap up and down with excitement (figuratively — my knees can’t take that kind of sudden activity anymore); there are others, however, that give me pause for concern. This task was of the latter camp.
It isn’t that I dislike Longines. It’s almost worse: I barely have an opinion anymore. While I do like the Spirit line, and think it’s a very solid model family, well-made and “okay” on the pricing front, it’s deeply unremarkable. The best edition the bra...
WatchGecko •

The Top Five Tudor Black Bay Models

Tudor black Bay 54 M79000N-0001 - Credit Tudor
You might have expected this pint-sized 37 mm beauty to rank higher on my list, but I guess I’m somewhat immune to the recency bias that has hyped this model’s reputation to almost iconic status within a year or so of its release.
However, it was a sensitive move by Tudor and one that should be applauded. The 58 went someway to solving the slab-sided case issue of the original Black Bay Heritage models and the 54 model goes the extra mile. At 11.2 m...
WatchGecko •

Top Five Toughest Omega Watches

One of the Diver 300 M pieces had to make the list, so why not the memorable “No Time To Die” edition that saw Daniel Craig bow out of his star turn as James Bond in style?
The fabric strap is, in my opinion, more handsome and tougher than the interesting but awkward titanium mesh bracelet, which is better in theory than it is in practice (sizing and the way it lays against the wrist were irksome to me, whereas the military strap is not only beautifully patterned with complementary stripes, but...
WatchGecko •

Top Five Hamilton Models In 2024

Not many brands can claim to make a better watch (materially and functionally speaking) at a better price than Hamilton.


Following Longines’ slow creep up the pricing charts, Hamilton has been left as the most visible ultra-affordable brand owned by the Swatch Group. Price-wise, it is on a par with Certina and Mido, but neither brand enjoys as much name recognition or owner-group attention as the American-founded, Swiss-based maker.
Choosing just five models from Hamilton’s cur...
WatchGecko •

Peren Regia Review

Peren Regia - Credit WatchGecko
Duality. The light and the dark. The rough and the smooth. Peaks and troughs, summits and valleys, glittering spires and shadowy recesses. Wide open spaces and demarcated nooks. The contrasts that exist within the world and us all manifested in a daily companion for the wrist. God and the Devil are in the details. If you appreciate that, then you might well appreciate this watch — a watch that aims to do more than simply tick.
When brand founder Andy Bica set out...
WatchGecko •

IWC × Lewis Hamilton Pop-Up At Battersea Power Station

Fans of IWC take note: the popular Swiss brand from the German-speaking town of Schaffhausen is popping up in London next week with an exciting exhibition open to anyone from the watch-curious to the watch-obsessed.

For this pop-up, IWC will be temporarily occupying an exclusive corner of London’s famous Battersea Power Station, where it will be sharing a retrospective of its enduring collaboration with seven-time world champion and Formula One legend Lewis Hamilton and the Mercedes-AMG PETRONA...
Revolution Watch •

Introducing the Seiko Presage Craftsmanship Series Arita Porcelain

Seiko is known for certain qualities: rock-solid build, reliable movements, strong value, and the impeccable finishing of its higher-tier products, among many other things. One of its most celebrated characteristics, however, is its approach to dials. The brand can famously take a restrained design and make it completely arresting thanks to a texture, technique, or other unique treatment of the dial. This new creation in the Presage Craftsmanship Series is one of the best recent examples of that...
Revolution Watch •

Konstantin Chaykin’s New ThinKing Is the World’s Thinnest Mechanical Watch

Though age-old, some concepts in horology provide ongoing motivation and challenge to watchmakers. Understandably, thinness is one such goal. For some brands, it’s become a primary focus. Still, it’s rare that such a storied undertaking is brought to life on a platform that is as thoroughly novel as Konstantin Chaykin’s new ThinKing, claiming the hotly contested title of world’s thinnest mechanical watch with an incredible measurement of 1.65mm.True novelty is a hard thing to achieve. This is la...
Revolution Watch •

Armin Strom Fits The Dual Time GMT Resonance Into a New 39mm Size

One of the most common criticisms of highly complicated watches is their size. As cool as Armin Strom’s original timepiece featuring the resonance principle was, its dimensions of 59mm by 43.4mm gave it an avant-garde look and considerable wrist presence. If you dig esoteric watchmaking but are also in the camp of preferring moderate or vintage sizing, you might especially appreciate the new Armin Strom Dual Time GMT Resonance First Edition that fits fascinating horology into a wearable 39mm cas...
WatchGecko •

Top Five NOMOS Tangente 38 Date “Super 31” Colour Rush Models

When NOMOS Glashütte announced its new range of 31 Tangente 38 Date models in a rush of incredible colours, die-hard fans of the brand rejoiced. For those that remember the pre-in-house era of NOMOS, back when it was regarded as one of the finest watch designers-if-not-quite-makers, this is a real treat. While for many of us, it probably feels like yesterday, the NOMOS Super 30 series to which this release can be seen as a stunning second act was actually twenty years ago, debuting on September
WatchGecko •

Top Five Tudor Watches For Everyday Wear

It’s a bit odd for me to include an FXD on this list. The fixed-lug Pelagos is anything but versatile and doesn’t take kindly to high society. And yet, this new, ultra-lightweight, cycling-inspired, carbon-cased, moody beast is not only comfortable but also far smarter than the previous FXD releases. The cycling-specific tachymeter is also a lot of fun and a thoughtful edition. If you commute by bicycle, this could well be the beater you never knew you needed.

And now sanity returns. The Pelago
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