By Patrick Kansa
For those of you not familiar with the Magrette brand, they are a New Zealand-based company that is turning out attractive (and affordable) watches. They also have a lineup of heavily engraved pieces, but those may be a story for another day. Today, we’ll focus in on one of their latest models, the Moana Pacific Professional.
The Moana Pacific Pro carries forth a lot of the great styling that I’ve come to expect from them (of note, I’ve been following the brand for the past few years now, owning a few models as well) – cleanly executed dials housed in cushion-style cases, driven by nice movements. While these are ostensibly dive watches (and could be used as such), you and I both know that the vast majority of these aren’t going to see water any deeper than our kitchen sink. As such, some of they styling adjustments done for the Moana Pro line really make it a nice watch for the office.
Before we get to that, though, let’s run through the hard specs of the watch, shall we? The 44mm case is made of stainless steel, and is available in either stainless, PVD, or rose gold finishes (side note on those finishes – for non-PVD ones, they do an excellent job on alternating brushed and polished surfaces, giving the cases a nice bit of visual flair).
Tucked into the case you’ll have a Miyota 9015 automatic movement. While this may not have the panache of a Swiss movement, I’ve found the 9015 to eminently capable in all of the watches I’ve reviewed (or owned), and I think it’s a good choice here, as it helps to keep the pricing down. It’s a high beat movement (28,800 BPH) and it’s hacking, with an estimated 42-hour power reserve. In short, it’s not some low-end movement getting placed in the case.
Once the double-domed (and AR coated) sapphire crystal is in place, and the crown is screwed down, you’ll have a water resistance rating of 500m – more than adequate for what these watches are likely to see. Of course, should you head to deeper depths (more than 300m), the Moana Pro also features an automatic helium escape valve (HEV). And, should you decide to dive, the uni-directional bezel (with a ceramic insert) will definitely help you keep track of things, as well as the markings on the rehaut.
On the dial side of things, you’ve got a cleanly laid out one, with bold numerals (lumed as well) popping up at the cardinal positions on the watch. I like how they’ve prefixed a 0 onto the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions, as it balances the dial nicely across the four points – not to mention making it look a bit different than other pieces. As expected with this movement, you have the date wheel showing up over by 4 o’clock; the date wheel is in a darker palette, helping it to blend well with the options in this lineup.
Now, let’s talk a bit about the options you do have. Up until recently, you could get the watch in a PVD case with black dial, stainless case with a blue dial, or a rose gold finish with a grey dial. Expanding the options a bit, there’s a new “All Black” iteration (which removes color from the dial that we saw in the previous PVD version), and a new vintage brown that really plays to the styling of the dial and case, make for a vintage type of a feel.
For the existing lineup (which can be seen here) prices range from $545 to $595, with another $30 required for shipping. For the new models, you can pre-order the all black (here) or vintage brown (here) with a $150 deposit, with both pieces coming in at a final price of $575, and delivery estimated sometime in December.
Patrick Kansa – Contributing Writer
A database and analytics/BI developer by day, Patrick first began taking a deeper interest in wristwatches about five years ago, and has been writing about, and reviewing, wristwatches since 2011. You can find Patrick’s work on aBlogtoWatch, WristWatchReview, DreamChrono, and EngagedMarriage.
And, as a counter-point to Jovan, he’s a huge fan of The Dark Knight/Batman.
