View the Omega Speedmaster Photo Gallery.

I have a thing for durable watches. Finding a watch that can stand up to an active lifestyle, and still look good and keep great time over the period of many years, is surprisingly difficult. If you want a really robust watch, the conventional wisdom is to go with a Casio G-Shock if you're looking for a quartz or digital solution, and a Rolex if you want something Swiss and high-end. But Omega fans know there's another option which has one of the most interesting backstories in the history of horology.

The Omega Speedmaster Professional lands squarely between a high-end G-Shock and sport model Rolex in terms of price, looks fantastic, and has stood up to some of the most rigorous testing that any watch has ever been subjected to. Not only have Speedmaster Pros gone into space on many occasions, but they have actually been worn outside a space suit on the surface of the moon.

Before I get into the history of the Omega Speedmaster Professional, let's cover the specs:

• Stainless steel case and bracelet.
• Legendary Speedmaster bracelet with push-button release.
• Caliber 1861 manual wind movement; rhodium plated for corrosion resistance; 48-hour power reserve.
• Hesalite crystal (a type of plastic similar to Plexiglass -- very shock resistant).
• Water resistant to 50 meters, or 167 feet.
• Chronograph function (with "small seconds" at the 9 o'clock position), and tachymeter.
• 42mm case diameter.

We somehow missed this Basel announcement for a line of new aviator-targeted G-Shocks: the 'Gravity Defier' series. (Pictured at right is the GW-2500.) Designed to be easy to use by pilots even under extreme G-loads, they have several attributes that work in a cockpit:

• Non-reflective surfaces and flat black face.
• Big, well-lumed hands.
• 6/12 hour markers for rapid orientation.
• Large buttons.

As you'd expect from a G-shock, it's loaded with features:

• Six-band radio receiver.
• Tough solar power.
• Waterproof to 200m (660ft).
• Auto-backlight (not clear if this is just for the LED displays or not).
• Simultaneous display of three times at once -- nice for flying where you need local, destination, and UTC.
• Stopwatch, countdown timer, five alarms, and world time.

Seems to be reasonable in size at 47mmx15.8mm, and 66g.

Today I'm reviewing a watch that I like a great deal: the Christopher Ward C8 Pilot, model number C8SKK. It's a mechanical watch in the style of pilot's watches from decades ago, updated using modern materials and the ETA 2824-2 mechanical movement. Let's start with the specs:

• 44mm by 9.7mm, 140g.
• 22mm leather strap, black with off-white (ecru) stitching, brushed rivets and a nice butterfly double deployant clasp.
• Antimagnetic inner case and dial.
• Sapphire crystal with inner anti-reflective coating.
• Small mineral crystal on the back for viewing of the balance and rotor.
• Signed oversized crown, gasketed but not screwdown.
• 50m (150ft) water-resistant.
• Matte finish stainless steel case.
• Lumed indices and hands in the new blue-white SuperLuminova SLNBGW9.
• Applied double-dot triangle at 12 o'clock to rapidly show dial orientation.
• ETA 2824-2 movement, 28,800 vph and 38 hour power reserve. Hacking, handwinding with center seconds and date at 3 o'clock.
• Swiss Made (which usually denotes a vastly more expensive watch).
• List price is 212 pounds for non-EC buyers, or about $311 as of December 2008.
• Christoper Ward has an unusual "60/60" guarantee for a 60-day no quibble return and 60 month (5 year) warranty.

Other versions are also available (white dial, brown strap, PVD case), but all share the same basics. Read on for our review.

Dievas watches recently released the Flieger Timer, a handsome watch reminiscent of old school German pilot watches. Although Dievas is more readily known for their tritium tubed dive watches like the unique Divergraph and very cool Noble Professional, the Flieger Timer carries the Dievas' typical flare for design and classic styling. Dievas has gone the extra mile with the 50 piece limited run of this watch packing in features like an AR sapphire crystal, screw-in 22mm lugs, 42.5mm case with sapphire display back.  The watch is powered by an ETA 2452 automatic movement with a 42 hour power reserve.

As a former pilot, there are two watches that represent the absolute finest gear for flying: the Omega X-33, and Breitling Aerospace. Both are quartz and analog/digital, and have very different looks. Today's post is about a very similar watch that has a much more reasonable price tag to the Aerospace, the Victorinox Swiss Army Classic XLS MT. I've not yet confirmed this, but I strongly suspect that it has the exact same movement as the Aerospace, the ETA 988.432, making it one heck of a deal. Specifications of the Victorinox are:

• Swiss made, Swiss quartz movement.
• Anti-reflective-coated sapphire crystal.
• Stainless steel case, PVD-coated 'gunmetal'.
• Luminous hands and hour markers.
• Crown guard.
• Countdown timer, alarm clock, stopwatch, dual time zone, multiple languages.
• Water resistant to 100m.
• 45mm by 12m, quite large.

List price is shown as $1,095USD, but I would expect a discount from that. Let's compare to the Breitling Aerospace:

The Bell & Ross company (Yep, that's an ampersand. The joke is that Bell & Ross got theirs from Vacheron Constantin, who used to be Vacheron & Constantin.) has been a recurring subject here on Watch Report. We like many of their watches, particularly the aircraft-styled Instrument collection and their new line of dive watches. Today we've got some new models from B&R, so let's take a look and see what's changed.

First up is the BR01 Instrument Pro Titanium. Like their predecessor Instrument models, it has the square case, bold dial and aircraft-gauge style paired with a reliable ETA mechanical movement. This new model is now made of lightweight titanium, and they've also changed the style of the hour and minute hands to a beveled/polished look that I quite like. It's very similar to the style of the hands on the Seiko Marinemaster SBDX001, another watch slated for review here. The BR01 has a chronograph, using the ETA 2892 base coupled with a Dubois-Dupraz chronograph module. Specs are 46mm, grade-2 titanium with a satin finish. The dial is grey with white Superluminova coating on hands and hour markers. The crystal is sapphire with an anti-reflective coating, and the strap is rubber.

We've become big Sinn fans here at WatchReport, and today I learned of a new model, the 657. Available in black chromed steel (shown) or stainless, this update to the 657 adds some features of interest:

• Updated bezel design, more durable and more readable markers
• Size increased to a more modern 40mm by 12mm
• Added a black chapter ring around the dial for readability.

Those are just the new features! In addition, it's a bulletproof watch for extreme environments:

• Anti-magnetic to 80,000 A/m, which works out to about 1000 Gauss, or 0.1T, the same as the Rolex Milgauss. As with the Milgauss, Sinn used an iron dial and soft iron movement casing inside the watch to achieve this.
• Double-sided anti-reflective-coated sapphire crystal, very scratch resistant.
• Waterproof to 200m (660ft), which is exceptional for a pilot's watch.
• Very unusually, it's rated for low pressures too, again for pilots in unpressurized cockpits.
• Stainless steel case, about 77g without the bracelet or band.

The movement is based on the tractor ETA 2824-2, a well-known and reliable Swiss automatic. The product page, auto-translated from German, is here via Google, and the original is here at sinn.de.

Street price for the stainless version is about 1600USD, I would expect that the black chrome version would be a few hundred dollars more. I really like this one, and after Christian's review of the 856C I'm dying to see one of these in person.

View the Sinn 856 UTC photo gallery.

In my tireless search for unique, robust, and beautiful watches, it was inevitable that I would someday be wearing a Sinn. I chose the 856 UTC as my first Sinn because it represents a very nice balance between functionality and design.

Before I get into the specifics of the 856, I want to provide a little background on the Sinn brand. Sinn is a German watch company that has been making mechanical watches since 1961. Sinn is owned by Lothar Schmidt who, in addition to having been with IWC and A. Lange & Söhne in the past, happens to be an engineer. I mention this fact because Schmidt's background in engineering clearly manifests itself in the design of many Sinn watches, including the 856 UTC.

Features of the Sinn 856 UTC include:

View the Orient CFT00004B Photo Gallery.

The Orient CFT00004B is a handsome, semi-dressy sport watch which incorporates Orient's own 46R40 self-winding automatic movement. It has a great looking polished case and bracelet, a power reserve indicator, a slide rule, and an "open heart" skeleton dial that shows the balance wheel and the crown and stem assembly.

The Case

This is a well balanced watch with a 43.7mm case that sits 12.1mm off your wrist. The  case is polished and has a pleasant shine to it that compliments the fixed bezel and the nicely shaped dual crown system. The 9 o'clock crown is for setting the time while the 4 o'clock crown operates the internal slide rule. As a side note, before you decide to buy a watch with a slide rule, I recommend that you read up on how to use it, and make sure it's something you really want. They are complicated and difficult to use, and tend to make the dial much busier than a simple dive-style timing bezel. The slide rule on the Orient CFT00004B is unique in that it's internal (below the crystal) which means it's operated by a crown rather than rotating it directly. Internal rotating bezels, or reflectors, are usually reserved for dive watches since you don't want the bezel to get bumped and inadvertently adjusted; this is the first time we've seen one one a pilot style watch.

The dial and movement are sandwiched between twin sapphire crystals to give you a view of both the time and the technology behind it. The dial is cluttered but easy to read, thanks to the exaggerated arabic markers at the twelve and six o'clock positions as well as ample markers and long, wide hands. All the markers and hands have decent lume that lasts long enough to be usable, but don't quite give Seiko or Ocean7 a run for their money. The Orient CFT00004B does not have a date feature which is one of my few complaints.

This is the second Orient I've owned. The first was the "Red Beast", a boisterous diver that crowded your wrist and screamed out with its bright red face and massive hands.  The CFT00004B  seems to be more accurate than its diver cousin, and bears less resemblance to the Miyota automatics found driving Invictas and automatic Citizen divers.  This is a nice watch with an asian movement that keeps better time then one might think, given the price.