By Jovan Krstevski
To all black watch lovers out there, or if you happen to like at least dark themed watches, well Breitling seems to be all out on satisfying our cravings. If you have been following Breitling these days, you will see that their collection of all-black watches is pretty much growing. Yet again for this article, Breitling has added a new model featuring an all-black watch design in the form of the Breitling Navitimer 46 which is undeniably the bigger brother of the iconic Navitimer pilot’s chronograph. What’s more is that it now sports a Blacksteel edition with several new additional features, more about this later.
Perhaps it’s good to say that black is good on some watches but not all the time. However when it comes to chronos, black seems to be appropriate especially if you want to isolate many factors cluttering readability. As we all know chronometers happen to be relentless on sporting noisy dials which is my personal iteration of cluttered dial display which is inevitable of course if you want more functionalities to your watch. There are very few brands sporting clean chronos and some of them resort to displaying an additional function hidden behind the caseback which is of course very unconventional and inconvenient. Well, this is not the same for Breitling.
The new Breitling Navitimer 46 Blacksteel as its name implies sports a large 46 mm robust steel case design. This size may not sound very welcoming to those looking for a rather average size of 42 mm but to each his own right specially that this given watch design is made so for maximizing its features which is of course very appealing to its targeted wearers, no pun intended folks. Besides this case has really nice features built into it such as a satin brushed finish that is very cool and a highly resistant carbon-based treatment that gives it a darker look. Just like its smaller siblings, this watch sports a rotating circular slide rule bezel that can be used for airborne navigation.
The dial is, of course, black but you see this is where perfect contrasts matter. Breitling designed the dial to be dark yet very clear with red accents on its central sweep-seconds chronograph hand and subdial hands – a very nice sterling silver-base dial indeed. We also see only 2 sub-dials compared to the classic Navitimer’s 3. For me, this is good because it cleans up the design plus now it resembles a much cooler cockpit-like display. The sub-dials are a 30-minute chronograph counter at 3 o’clock and small seconds at 9 o’clock.
What powers the new Breitling Navitimer 46 Blacksteel watch is an in-house Caliber 01, a self-winding, COSC chronometer-certified movement with an integrated 1/4-second chronograph function. High-tech you say, darn right you are. This caliber sports a high frequency (28,800 vph) which translates to a staggering 70-hour power reserve. The darkened winding rotor of the movement is also visible on the sapphire caseback. Overall, the watch is water-resistant to 30 meters. Its robust design is also maximized by its curved sapphire crystal sporting a glare-proof display making the dial pop out in perfect contrast.
The additional feature is the new black rubber strap bearing an aircraft tire-tread pattern. The Breitling Navitimer 46 Blacksteel is priced at $11,975. For more info, please visit breitling.com
