When we travel around (or even have daylight savings changes in place), your local hour of day does change. In other words, GMT time does not change. While this is reverse of what we might more commonly expect, I’ve come to feel that this implementation makes more sense, especially for someone who travels a good bit. While we’re on the subject of the GMT hand, it’s worth noting that the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT has this set with the minute hand, while the main hour hand is the jumping hand. That way, it blends in, but it’s still able to be picked out when you need it. IE, have the hand itself be in black or dark grey, and then only outline the tip in white, something of that nature. I like the idea of a similar shape (such as we saw on this Archimede LINK) – I just think that it needs to be more closely aligned to the dial color. In short, now I realize why most brands have a GMT hand that is (a) styled much differently than the main handset and (b) shares next to nothing with the main color palette, to differentiate things. While I never got the wrong time set in my mind, there were more than a couple double- (and triple-) takes while wearing the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT. Though the GMT hand is clearly painted to be different than the hour hand, it’s actually more eye-catching than the hour hand (larger white surface area against the dark dial). On the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT, things get a bit trickier. I don’t know about you, but I generally have a good sense of the time of day (morning vs afternoon, etc), and I then rely on a quick glance at a watch to refresh me where I the day that I am. In practical purposes, however, it led to some confusing time readings. When I first saw photos of the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT, I thought it was an interesting idea that it followed the same shape and size as the hour hand, albeit skeletonize and in “ghost” form, being in white. Often on GMT watches, the hand takes the form of a slender stick with an arrow head on it, generally in a warm color (red, orange, yellow) to make it quite obvious that it’s different from the “regular” handset. Since I mentioned the GMT hand, let’s talk about that for a moment. In our review loaner, we had the dark grey version with white accents (there’s also a silver dial that keeps the main accents white, but swaps in a blue GMT hand for the white one that our loaner had). Tucked into that – and under the convex sapphire crystal – you’ve got a well laid-out dial. While I cannot say for sure if the case design is identical to others I have seen from the brand, there is definitely a shared DNA between them, lending a comfortable familiarity to the case itself. I mean, really, you’d have to be doing a LOT of sailing for a GMT complication to make sense, no? Given that, and the fact that I’m not really into boats, we’ll be evaluating the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT on its own.Īt 42mm, the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT is a nice balance between a reasonable size, and something that skews a little larger to draw attention (or just make it easier for eyes to read). Other than the nautical flag that appears on the exhibition caseback, I’m not picking up that theme. Now, ostensibly, the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT has some nautical ties (back to the Riva Runabout yachts of the 1920s). So, suffice to say – the opinions on the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT are solely mine, and your mileage may vary. This is because my friend and fellow editor, Victor Marks, has had a bit more of a mixed experience with the brand, which plays out in the reviews he’s written (and a recent podcast episode). You’ll notice that in that opening paragraph, I specifically called out ‘my experience’. Today, we’re taking a look at the first GMT from the brand that I’ve had cross my desk, the Frederique Constant Runabout GMT. However, with Frederique Constant, my experience has been that the products usually match to the marketing hype. In fact, that’s what a lot of the crowd-funded watches try to position themselves as. The idea that you could get champagne-level watches at beer prices was simply entrancing. Ah, I still fondly remember when I first learned about Frederique Constant.
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