Oakley GMT, Honed Whiteface, "Bruticus Tempora"

[MotoLiam]

I recently picked up an Oakley GMT watch over the holidays while I was back in California. While I enjoy wearing mechanical watches (my GMT II is my daily wear), this particular piece caught my eye some years ago because of its unique styling, bracelet and functions. The first mention of this particular watch was in 2003 when it was introduced, and currently it is a discontinued item that is no longer in production. It retailed for between $575 USD and $650 USD depending on the finish of the case and bracelet, which ranged between a "Honed" finish (pictured here), a Polished version, and an Ion-plated, Black Chrome version, along with white-face, black-face, and a blue-face option. I had been wanting one for some time, ever since the Bridgestone tire technician for Marco Melandri showed me his "stealth" black on black version, and I finally pulled the trigger this Xmas with the help of my girlfriend, who gifted it to me (YES!).



First off, the case and bracelet are completely organic and are made of surgical stainless steel. I'm not sure what that means as a reference to 316L or 904L, but it has been remarkably scratch- and ding-resistant in the weeks I have worn it - especially on the band where desktop and keyboard scratches normally show up (none here!). The Honed finish looks to me like a fine quality, glass-bead-blasted finish, with a a satin like texture. Due to the micro craters created by the particle bombardment, it picks up and reflects light unlike any other SS watch I've come across (non-polished finish, that is). The case and bracelet are also very 3-D, and there are bumps, ridges, and knobs all over the place. The first thought is, "This watch is straight out of Aliens, or some other H.R. Geiger picture!". I truly enjoy how different it is compared to the standard fare, but this watch is far more attractive than the case and bracelet alone show.

The face of this watch is incredible, and in my opinion, is of a far higher quality than one would expect for a watch in this price range. I have the white-face version, but in reality, it's a very light Silver. The face is thick (based on the cutout for the date window), and shows striations leading outward from the center of the watch (pictured). Also there is a light "bead-blast" look to the face, adding further texture and depth.



There are three plain white subdials on the face with beveled silver surrounds which display the Seconds counter, a "Local-time" display and the Alarm subdial. The subdials are sunk into the face with zero gaps from the darker subdial surrounds to the lighter silver face, and the script on the face is clean, clear and shiny. The Seconds rotate as expected, not with a sweep motion but the standard tick-tock of all quartz watches. The hand itself is pretty interesting and reminds me of something out of Star Trek. The markings on the Seconds subdial line up accurately with the movement of the hand.

The "Local Time" subdial is where the GMT functionality of this watch come into play. Mounted to the chapter ring is a a convexed ring of something (not sure if it's plastic or metal), which is marked with the cities of the world's 24 different timezones. In some cases, two cities are listed, as in ROMA/PARIS. The top two buttons on the watch, top left and top right, activate the Big Red/GMT Marker hand. By clicking on the right button, the red hand moves forward through the time zones. Push once, the hand moves over one "spot", and then the Local Time subdial comes alive as the hour and minute hand spin rapidly forward by exactly one hour. Pushing the top left button of the watch reverses the time flow (hahaha). Holding down either of these buttons causes the Big Red Hand to smoothly sweep across the face, stopping on whichever timezone it is over when you release the button. The Local Time subdial then goes into over-drive, because the hands spin faster and faster to catch up with the large timezone discrepancy shown on the subdial and the GMT Marker hand. However, and this is a neat touch, the hands will pause slightly every hour of change. The Local Time is set off of the main watch hands, so the minute hands are always matching, but you can set it wherever you'd like because it's not a forced calibration. Instead, you are free to set the two clocks however you'd like, though it defeats the purpose of having the convenience of pushing a button and seeing the Local Time in whatever time zone you choose. I confess, sometimes you have to look pretty hard to see exactly where the markers are, because the subdial is a little smaller than I'd like, and there are 24 hours stuffed onto it. It's possible to mistakenly read the subdial and be off by an hour if you're not paying attention. This is something of a pet peeve of mine, because I wear my Rolex GMT II because of it's outstanding readability. The Red 24 hand on the Rolex wins out here because it's much more precise and the (in my case) Pepsi bezel makes it a snap to know whether or not my friends are sleeping or working.

Back to the subdials: The third and final dial is the Alarm face, which can be set one of two ways. There is a repeating alarm which will sound every 12 hours, and then you can also set the Alarm to sound at a new point within the next 12 hours. When you set it for the one-time-only, you press the lower left button of the watch to rotate the hands, and holding down speeds up the spinning until you almost always over-shoot where you wanted to go, haha. They spin FAST. When you set the single Alarm, the hands change to whatever time you set the Alarm to, and the don't move until you push a button to deactivate the sounding, or the Alarm time comes and goes (and you overslept and missed it!). At that point, the Alarm hands will then begin to follow the main face time. Setting the Repeating Alarm is much cooler, because you get to pull out the lower right crown, use it to set the Repeating Alarm Time, and then push it back in. Then, although the Alarm subdial and hands will show the main face time, the watch will remember the Repeating Alarm, and it will sound automatically.

The date is a standard white on black affair, with clear, legible digits. I think the placement could have been more stylishly done than the 4 o'clock position, like maybe in the center of the Oakley "O" logo, but in any case, the date is fairly easy to read. I say fairly because in truth, there is no Light feature on this quartz watch, and reading anything at night and other low-light conditions can be difficult.

The hands of the main face are Blades, and they reflect light well, with different edges along each side of the hand. The Red GMT hand is only red on the top, and looking at an angle shows that it is white/silver. The hour markers are Super-Luminova with black surrounds, and the minute marker hashes are perfect. The hands also feature Super-Luminova.



The Bracelet will probably be the most attention getting detail about this watch, and it can best be described as "Predatory". As in, this is what the Predator would have worn had he not been forced to wear that arm cuff with the built in low-yield nuke. The links act like a motorcycle back-protector, or a spinal column, bending in one direction but not in the opposite one. It is extremely cool, and the links are THICK. The craftsmanship of the links is great, and the 3-D curves along the edges of the band are great and "muscular".



Because of the raised ridge along the center of the bracelet, the band picks up light in different ways, showing angles and curves that most bracelets don't have. The shadows they put off as the watch and band move around your wrist is fascinating to watch, and moreso, the lit sections that the Honed finish shows simply seem to glow. The finish makes this watch appear to be made out of a strange alloy that wasn't created on Earth. Seriously, it's that cool (check out an Oakley store to see other watches with this same finish, and play with the lighting to see what I mean).



The clasp mechanism is a two stage affair, with an overbuilt push-button and fold-over clasp, secured again with a clip. I say overbuilt because every piece here is thick and well designed. The push button clasp release mechanism is fairly standard, and I would have preferred a slightly stronger set of springs in place, though it doesn't cause any problems. I just think in keeping with the watch's beefy appeal, some heavy duty springs would be more appropriate. The flip-lock style clip is even better. While most companies, Rolex included, use the clip itself as the "spring" to hold itself closed (you know, you can bend it to make it more secure, so the knobs fit into the indents tighter), Oakley designed what I consider to be an improvement. You can see this in the photo with the Pink Arrow pointing to the SS ball. This ball is spring loaded, and fits into an indent in the clip. No need to worry about the clip's indents getting worn out, because the spring loaded balls will find their fit, and it always snaps shut with a satisfying click. It is burly, as you can see in the pic



Speaking of which, I weighed this watch on a friend's postal scale, and it came up at a Whopping 8 (EIGHT!) Ounces! This is with three full size links and two half links removed. I have never owned such a heavy watch, and it will be interesting to see how the bracelet pins hold up, as they are the only thing securing the watch head to the band. I can detect some flexion if I push the band to bend in the direction it doesn't want to go, so I'll just check regularly to make sure everything seems to be in good shape. I would really hate to drop this piece. From what I have gathered through checking photos on the internet, there were two versions of watch head for this watch, one that was single piece, and one that had two removable sections that were held in place by two screws each (four total), and these sections held the bracelet to the watch head. I have the single piece case.



Here's a bad shot of the Lume I took in my bathroom at high 2:16.47 PM this afternoon. As mentioned previously, this watch is difficult to read in low light conditions, and I wish it had a blue backlight of some kind, or a glow in the chapter ring. I feel this is the watch's weakest point at this time.



Here's how the watch sits on my wrist. It is perfect, and unlike other bracelet designs, because each link is removable (except for the end links), you can size it to fit you wrist perfectly. 5 links on one side, 9 on the other? No problem, whatever your wrist requirements, this can accommodate you. I love this aspect of the watch because I have rather skinny wrists and large forearms, so sizing a bracelet is usually a problem for me. For reference, I run 5 links on the six o'clock side and 7 links on the twelve o'clock side of my Rolex GMT II. And I still can't get the oyster lock clasp to center on my wrist (need to cut a link out of the six o'clock side, yeah, I know, blasphemy blah blah).

The Crystal is Sapphire, the hardest substance used in watch making today. It is slightly domed and features an Anti-Reflective coating. This is the first watch I've owned with a crystal like this (never had an Omega), and I gotta say, it's great. While it can't be used to reflect a powerful beam of light into someone's eyes across the room, it is perfectly clear at all times, and partially owing to the light colored face, the crystal does not show smudges. Reflected lights appear to be blue/green when shown on the AR coating. Because Oakley has pioneered so many different lens coatings for their eye glasses, I knew this feature would be outstanding with their watch, and I was right. The dome of the crystal does take some getting used to, though, because as low angles the crystal distorts the face. To me, the watch appears to be more lively as a result, as it's a neat fishbowl effect.

The left side of the watch case reminds me of a submarine, because of it's curvature.



One thing I've noticed is that the Red GMT hand can appear to be off centered when you are looking down at the face. The hand does not always line up perfectly with the hash mark indicating that particular time zone. This is because the watch face is so deep that the tallest hand (the Red one), sits so far about everything that it creates an optical illusion. Squaring up the face of the watch and looking straight down on it shows the hand to be pointing true. There is a reset feature for the hands if you do find that they are out of alignment though, so perhaps there is something to the repeated fiddling with the GMT feature of the watch, hahaha. I aligned all the hands when I got this in December, and haven't had to do anything since. Also, the watch is running about 2 seconds fast per day, per time.gov. This is not such a great concern to me, as I usually carry a Casio radio-controlled Atomic G-Shock with me when I travel the world, which I use to set my Rolex by, haha.



While this watch can never replace my Rollie in my heart, it has earned a place in my rotation! It is a massive, heavy-weight time piece that is unique from a functional and three-dimensional standpoint, and I highly enjoy wearing it. The "Alienesque" look, the sheen of the Honed finish, and the fact that I've only seen two others in real life before (one on an Oakley sponsored motorcycle racer, and the other on one of his technicians), means that I'll be wearing it often! Its rugged looks add a special X-factor to whatever I happen to be wearing, and it stands out no matter what the occasion. It looks suited to be in outer space, which is perfect for my interstellar lifestyle, haha. While I also admire the Oakley Minute Machine, another huge faced watch, its light weight ruled it out for me because I like to know that I'm wearing something serious, and titanium watches don't do that for me. If you're in the market for a strange and compelling addition for your own collection, you could do much worse than the Oakley GMT.

I hope you enjoyed this review. I've had fun and learned a lot about horology and watches reading all the great posts here, and I thought I'd give a little something back to this great board. Cheers, from wherever I am!