octavian

It's not the hand length, it's the length of the orange color itself. I know an owner of the black gen, have seen it up close, and the orange length is clearly too long on the rep. Check gtanak's pix.. it almost looks like the orange goes all the way to the center, like the white. On the black, the GMT hand is supposed to "float" like the original 1655. It's an easy fix for those who want to do the mod, but it's a visual flaw out of the box.

The length of the orange doesn't match the gen. Too long.

The most obvious cosmetic flaw of the black version is the length of orange on the orange hand. There should be a longer black portion before the orange starts. This is easy to spot when comparing it to a genuine.

It appears that the white model is more accurate than the black one from what I can see. You're right, though, the "chronometer" text from that angle does look a bit darker. I'm confused about Angus and his description of the black model on his site. He says only the first three pictures are updated, but compared to the previous pictures the date window looks different. On the earlier picture, the mag bubble looks clear and without any "blue" like the genuine. But the "final" version looks like others with that blue tint, even though he said the final version wouldn't have any blue. Perhaps the most notable flaw is the orange hand on the black model. The orange part is too long; the genuine has a longer black portion before the orange starts. Anyone else with QC photos of these updated Explorer II's?

Well...I can tell you how long my GMTIIc Asian lasted. Received it on Thursday morning. Died today (Monday evening). So that's about four and a half days of normal wear. Only adjusted it for time a couple of instances. Very disappointing, to say the least. I'm not a repair expert so I don't know what's wrong on the inside. I was considering taking it to be fixed... but it sounds like there may be issues with the movement as a whole. Other flaws (unrelated to the movement)... slightly tilted crystal (the cyclops side of the crystal is raised above the plane of the bezel by a millimeter or so). Unusually sharp edges on the bracelet. And I agree with another poster... the clasp scratches very easily.