I was really excited about this watch when I got to play with it at SIHH 2010. Jaeger-LeCoultrehas been working with the US Navy SEALs for a while making watches to suit their needs. Last year I wrote about my favorite version which was the Master Compressor Diving Automatic Navy SEALs Alarm watch. Now the brand has finally released the most "mainstream" version of the collection. It is a more basic three-hand version of the watch and is very pure in form. It really is a watch born out of an interesting partnership with people whose professional lives demand easy to use and durable timepieces (looking cool in the process is an unintended side effect).
Previous watches in the collection were 44mm wide and this version is 42mm wide (and 14mm thick). In a time when such sport watches are still made with larger dimensions, I was very curious as to why Jaeger-LeCoultre shrunk the size a bit. The reason was simple. The Navy SEALs guys thought the previous versions were a bit big and asked for it to be smaller. Simple enough, but it was good to learn that fact. You can see the watch size on my wrist is prominent but not too big. It makes for a very capable daily wear, as well as a serious tool. The Navy SEALs were very interested in legibility. When it came down to it, this is their biggest request in a watch (aside from the fact that it should stand up to their abuse). Jaeger-LeCoultre designers spent a lot of time tweaking the dial to optimize how easy it is to read. I think that you will agree the high contrast dial looks highly legible and the hands stick out nicely. And especially on this watch, there are no subdials or other functions to take away from pure ease of use. Plus, special care was taken to make sure the lume was highly viewable in the dark and underwater. So in all, it succeeds in its intended purposes.
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