Urszuly Patrik

I really, really like the vintage GMT Master from Rolex. I’m not sure what it is that completely captures me about that watch, but it is right up my alley, that is for sure. I’m especially in love with the proper vintage Bakelite bezel version with the smaller case. I saw one recently on Chrono24 for 150 grand EUR. I laughed hysterically.

For those of us who can’t cough up that kind of money for a dainty watch with a jingly-jangly bracelet, a pressed clasp, and a friction bezel, and just general poor quality, the Timex Q GMT is here to offer a shoulder to cry on.

Now, I own this watch and I really like it, but before I start glazing it I must get a couple of things off my chest.
Firstly, price. It is not as bad as 150 grand for a vintage Rolex, but it is almost as audacious. 250 euros can get you some pretty sweet deals elsewhere, ones that include sapphire, a quality bracelet, and worthwhile water resistance in the package, usually powered by a mechanical movement, so I would take the self-proclaimed authority and say this watch for this kind of price is not a good deal, not at all. I bought mine for 50% off, that is where its value truly lies.

I would like to note that the negatives listed above (lack of sapphire, lack of safe water resistance, jingly-jangly bracelet, and a friction bezel) are only issues when we take the asking price into consideration, but they are otherwise features rather than disadvantages.

The acrylic crystal is really good-looking, it’s warm and cozy, offers nice distortion, and you will definitely scratch it up, and scratch it up badly. That is what I did at least in the very first couple of days of ownership without even noticing it, and I am generally very careful with my watches.

The bracelet looks awesome, kinda like a Jubilee but not really, as it is more similar to an integrated style bracelet. Very nice. Only issue is the 18mm lug width, which you only notice when you take off the bracelet and replace it with a vintage-style brown leather strap (you know, the one with the white threads on the top for decoration, because that kind of strap was specifically made for watches with Pepsi-colored bezels), and it is an issue because the 18mm strap attached to an already small, 38x44x12.5mm sized watch makes the whole package wear very small, too small to be honest.

Wearing it on the integrated bracelet, however, is great (if you don’t mind complete lack of micro-adjustment, therefore probably wearing the watch loose) as the visible width of the bracelet starts from 21mm tapering down to 18mm, which makes the watch feel perfectly sized, and the pressed clasp, jingly construction, and general light weight all can be accepted and even loved a little bit as they enhance the vintage feel of this watch, which is the whole point really.

The movement is great. It is quartz, which may be an issue for some of you more uptight folks with an internalized, everlasting trauma caused by those evil Japanese during the quartz crisis, but for the rest, it’s great as it will be a lot more accurate than the 150 grand GMT Master, and servicing it through the small hatch on the caseback will only require a neglected, overgrown fingernail and a couple of bucks for a decade worth of batteries.
Now it must be said, because there are enthusiasts out there that really care, which is beyond me but anyway, this GMT is a “caller” or “office” GMT. So there you go.

The Timex Q GMT is the type of watch you just love to look at. It almost feels like a dear friend or rarely seen but loved even more relative. You look at the dial and get lost in the reminiscence for some nostalgic romanticism that stuck with you for some reason, you admire the domed, warm acrilyc, the polished indices, you chuckle a bit when you see the half-finished Mercedes hour hand, you look at the GMT hand and have no idea what time it is there, wherever it is pointing, you twist the vibrantly colored red and blue bezel while you dream about flying a commercial airplane over the Atlantic Ocean (even though you barely even passed your driver’s exam and you regularly forget to shift down from 4th to 2nd when a corner is coming up), and you just have a really great time, with a really well-designed watch, that just screams fun.

My review of the Zelos Spearfish GMT is, in fact, not at all a review of the Zelos Spearfish GMT.
It is, however, a review of the Zelos Blacktip GMT which I have owned in the foggy dew-hidden past, and of which I have very strong opinions. Falling in love and eventually parting with this watch was one of my very first heartbreaks, and we all know that the first one usually stings the most and remains vibrating at an unbearable frequency in our soul the longest.

For those who are interested in the Spearfish GMT, not the Blacktip GMT, and are getting ready to close this questionable rambling of a review, I say HOLD UP! Please don’t go! I’m in dire need of your sweet attention. My mother spoiled me a little when I was a little child, and now I have validation issues.

Oh, and another thing, the Blacktip GMT is awfully similar to the Spearfish GMT, there is literally one millimeter difference between them, and an open caseback, and a different movement, so okay, they are pretty different, but the wearing experience (which I will talk about once I finish my unnecessary rambling, and because of which I ended up selling my Blacktip GMT) is very, and I mean very similar due to the almost identical cases of these watches.

So! How did the Blacktip GMT wear, or in other words, how would the Spearfish GMT wear?
Well, I can only give a certain answer for the former and a speculation for the latter, and my answer to both is: AWFUL. I know, I know, a very strong word. Let me explain.

The main issue was the unfortunate combination of a thick case, heavy movement, and small, protruding caseback. 13 millimeters isn’t an awful lot, it is regular sports watch thickness territory, but due to the complete lack of ergonomics considered in the making of my Blacktip GMT, it wore a lot more like a 15mm thick watch.
Firstly, the caseback was way too small compared to the whole case, think of it like a one cent coin compared to a quarter dollar coin (US). Because of this and the compact lug-to-lug, and the heft of the case and movement, the watch was top-heavy, it never stayed in place no matter how tight or loose I wore it, no matter strap or bracelet, wearing the Blacktip GMT always felt like an anvil strapped to my wrist. An anvil that takes immense joy out of applying pressure to the most vulnerable parts of my wrist.

Now for the bracelet. The Blacktip is equipped with an H-link bracelet whereas the Spearfish comes on a slightly different bracelet with smaller links that seem to articulate much better. The Blacktip’s H-link was, again, AWFUL.
It had an articulation similar to a badly lubricated door hinge, it was very, and I mean very heavy, the undersides of the clasp (you know, the part where it touches your naked flesh) were sharp as a freshly refined Bowie knife in the 1800s American frontiers, and no matter the otherwise very welcome and honestly expected on-the-fly adjust system, I could never get a good fit on the bracelet. And the cherry on top of all this was the quick-release spring bars, which were of course way too long and way too sharp and pointy to ever leave production without a complete rethinking of the whole system, so the pain coming from the underside of my wrist where the clasp was biting its teeth into me, and the pain coming from my wrist bone, where the top-heavy case was making sure to cause as many microfractures as possible, were both accompanied by the pain of the quick-release spring bars digging into the top of my wrist, like the nails of a dominant, slightly sadistic lady friend, if you’re into that sort of stuff.

It is a real shame, because I adored my Blacktip GMT. I had the teal-colored one, and loved every bit of how it looked. I loved the quality feel of the watch, loved the slightly domed sapphire, the crown action, bezel action, everything. Well, everything but wearing the damn thing.

The Casioak. The only hype watch I have ever purchased. I have let it go since, and there is one main reason for that besides just getting bored of it long term, which happened also.

The digital subdial. Completely inadequate, useless, disappointing, frustrating and other matching phrases to continue.
The problem with the digital screen is legibility. You can barely see it with young, healthy eyes; forget about reading it properly once you're in the age where eyesight starts to lose its youthful strength.
The fact that the hands completely cover up the screen several times a day is just the last nail to the coffin, or to be a little bit more positive, the chef's kiss, the cherry on top, the last straw and other matching phrases to continue.

It took me a longer-than-usual time to sell the watch tho, because I quite liked it and I still think it looks amazing.
It's big, but it wears G-Shock big, which is always fine. It is comfortable on the resin strap, lightweight of course, and as I always had a thing for monochrome black watch dials, well, I have fallen in deep with my Casioak, and felt bad for selling it.
I bought the watch to be a gym watch, and in the gym I am in dire need of the stopwatch and countdown timer, as I must know to the exact second how much time I wasted scrolling on my phone while keeping one of the busy machines from being used by others, so the small, unreadable screen was a dealbreaker.

As for the Royal Oak resemblance, frankly, I didn't care much about that. I don't really see that in the design, maybe if I really squint my eyes I can see something that resembles an Offshore, but really, they are speaking a completely different design language, and I think that is for the best.