Breitling Montbrillant Datora just came in - PICS!

[subbiesrock]

The Montbrillant Datora came in yesterday via a fellow member, thought I'd give it a quick buff and show you guys

Absolutely gorgeous timepiece, it has a few advantages over the standard Navitimer series, being:

- Larger case (43mm vs. 41.5mm width) for the Navi

- Much better slide rule match (off by only 0.2-0.5mm compared with 2-3mm for Navi)

- Dial replication of a much higher quality (IMO)

- The band is superb, it astounds me why anyone would get the gen over this. It's immaculate.

- It's gorgeous

Breitling Pron at its best:

Gorgeous timepieces, this sits right next to the TT SS/Gold Navi (black croc) and the White Navi World (soon to be BOB tan strap, after seeing Deniz's AWESOME SA). All three are absolute keepers, with AR and aftermarket straps the only changes, not that there is a rush, these babies are going to be admired and cherished possessions for years to come, probably until I have an actual baby

subbiesrock

[veja74]

Thanks for the review on this. I was seriously considering it and was asking Andrew about it and he told me that it wasn't a very good replication I just didn't get it as all the pics I had seen looked really good compared to the gen pics I had seen. So let me just get this right, the subdial at 9 is a running seconds and a 24 hour hand, correct? I still have no idea how they pulled of that one in an Asian movement, very cool!!!

[subbiesrock]

@Veja74 - I have the Breitling Navitimer and the Navi World and I have to say that the sunken Date Wheel is probably the most glaring inconsistency with these two. I also have a few gen Navitimer dials which I procured for a future project and the quality of them compared to the rep Navi is clearly better. The World is much better finished than the Navi overall, in fact I would say it's the highest quality rep, on par with the Datora. Both are in my view the two best Navitimer reps that exist, although I haven't yet seen a Montbrillant Legende in the flesh.

Probably the biggest advantage of the Datora compared to the rest is the non-sunken day/date, making this the best Navi rep I know. The bracelet on this (unpictured) really is superb, it's like butter.

Here's a short review from the guy at breitlingsouce.com who discusses this exact Datora GEN model:

I can notice the band where it connects to the lugs is slightly different. Other than that, the clasp is standard Navi which is excellently replicated. The dial is superb and everyone can make their own judgement on how accurately this is repped, however in my opinion I think it's spot on.

Onto your question, the 9:00 subdial does indeed have two hands, the 24hr (linked to the hour hand, and not independently adjustable like the GMT hand on the World) and running seconds. Everything functions precisely as it should, how they do it is frankly astonishing to me. This is apparently a modified 7750 (the original is the ETA 7751 movement) to incorporate the day/month wheels and the date 'crescent moon' hand, as well as the 24 hour hand. In fact, this movement is incredibly feature-rich for a mechanical movement and I too am astounded that it even works at all, let alone working as well as it does. Incidentally this is the slow-beat 21.6k movement (a simple counting test confirmed 6 beats per second instead of 8 for the 28k movements).

An amazing watch on its own, and an incredible rep. Not sure to what Andreww was refering that made this a bad rep, but no doubt his eagle eyes are well-versed in picking such things up. He has a keen eye for detail in Navitimers that - after reading his review on Navitimers - has to be respected

[mastrmindalliance]

Nice watch. Congrats! The MBL (Legende) is very good too.