The Breitling Watch Blog

I’ve had some time now to sit with my Breitling Chronomat 44. Its a watch that took me a couple years to truly digest, and took me several years to convince myself to buy one. Now that I have owned it for some time, I’d like to share my deeper review thoughts.

Very well balanced dial and bezel composition. The bezel is thicker than on previous iterations, and the subdials have a very pleasant balance on the dial. The newer style rider tabs are a little less obvious than the originals, but also give it a cleaner look, and they don’t have the tendency to snag on clothing like the old ones did. This is the index model, rather than the more blingy roman numeral model, which I had reviewed before – I prefer this as it just sits better with me in the long run.

The inner ring between the bezel and the crystal has been lowered in height now, and doesn’t suffer as easily from dings and scratches anymore. A common problem for many Breitling owners. The entire face of the watch now follows a smooth contour, and feels very relaxed. it has grown into this new look quite well. The bezel is also a 240-click affair, quite precise.

The Crown and Pushers haven’t changed much in all these years, and it still features screw-down pushers and a rounded cone-shaped screwdown crown, aiding it to 500m water resistance. As you can see from the side, the bezel is still attached the traditional way, with 12 screws from the side.

Beautiful Breitling 5-row high-polish stainless steel bracelet, which is precision machined into one of the nicest bracelets out there. Breitling has chosen to go with swinging rather than fixed endlinks for a more contoured bracelet that will fit a wider range of wrist shapes. This is a good move I think, as free swinging endlinks tend to look better on more people.

The clasp is largely unchanged in over 20 years, and still looks great. The main difference that occured a few years back was the introduction of the raised wings logo on the fliplock.

Nice looking White-on-black date wheel. The Breitling 01 movement beating inside the Chronomat 44 features a fantastic 70-hour power reserve – almost 3 days. It also has the instantaneous date-change mechanism, which is really cool and a great feature for preventing accidental damage. Additional features that one might not notice are the column-wheel chronograph and auto-centering reset hammers for the chronograph.

Nice close-up of the dial to show the fantastic dial-work and great application of writing and lettering on the Chapter Ring as well as the indices.

Finally the wristshot! Its a beauty, and the 44mm diameter looks fantastic on my 6.75″ wrist. Not too big, not too small – just the right amount of wrist presence. I’ve always liked contrasting subdials and the white subs on black dial really look great on the Chronomat 44. I’m very happy with my Chronomat 44, and think that its a great choice for watch enthusiasts out there that are keen on Breitling’s design.