By Jovan Krstevski
The Romain Gauthier Logical One has seen various iterations notably on the use of precious materials including red gold, white gold, platinum and black titanium. The new release, however, adds a new element to the mix which uses natural titanium which the creator thinks is perfect for the Logical One watch. If you remember way back in 2013, the Logical One won the Men’s Complications Watch Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve 2013. One of the notable winning features of the watch is the revolutionary snail cam and the friction-minimizing ruby-link chain clearly seen on the dial. There is also the power efficient sapphire-lined mainspring barrel embodying the traditional chain-and-fusee style mechanism. Okay, let us go ahead and see what really makes the Logical One Natural Titanium Watch truly unique.
The 43 mm x 15 mm titanium case is very nice with smooth polishing. I love it mainly for its simplicity but don’t take it for granted since it really features a natural titanium feel, it is quite dramatic, to say the least. The lugs are somewhat leggy with a widening pattern which is quite odd in my opinion. The bezel looks surprisingly elegant and the satin finished pusher located at the 9 o’clock and time-setting crown at 3 o’clock create a very effective contrast to the highly polished case band. I do appreciate the impressive caseback which provides ample amount of visual information about the underlying movement. The case, when viewed on all sides, is simply mesmerizing so I somehow agree with the matchmaker that natural titanium indeed perfectly energizes the Logical One.
The Logical One Natural Titanium is available in various dial designs (oven-fired white enamel dial with flame-blued steel hands, oven-fired black enamel dial with gold hands, and black Clous de Paris dial with gold hands). The dial is semi-skeletonized and it contains all the original features of the Logical One. The time presentation is legible with the hours and minutes presented on an off-centre subdial closed to the right top quarter. The small seconds sub-dial is just below it cutting the 5, 6, and 7 o’clock in place. The power reserve indicator is presented behind the caseback which frees up space on the watch face. I know that some of you will probably complain since the lower portion of the main dial is oddly disturbed making the precise reading of 5, 6, and 7 o’clock quite challenging. Though take homage to the fact that the snail cam feature makes the Logical One worth having plus the ruby-link chain on the dial looks very for an Haute Horology watch.
What powers the new Romain Gauthier Logical One Natural Titanium watch is the meticulously hand-decorated in-house 4 Hz movement seen on the dial side and through the case back. This movement gets wound by an unusual winding pusher carefully integrated into the case band at 9 o’clock. This winning feature efficiently transmits power to the barrel on the same plane thus providing an impressive 46 hours of power reserve.
For more info, please visit romaingauthier.com
JOVAN KRSTEVSKI – FOUNDER, PROPRIETOR & EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Jovan Krstevski has been collecting watches every since his father bought him an Omega Seamaster back when he was just a teenager. He launched Watchgeek back in 2011, which is now known as WristReview and is one of the most widely read watch blogs on the Web. He quotes ’WristReview is a site to help people find, explore, discover and enjoy wristwatches.’ Besides WristReview, he also writes for a number of publications. Read his articles here
