Momentum Men's 1M-SP24B3C Format 4 Brown Wasser Leather Watch

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Price: $295.00    

Product Feature

• Swiss Quartz Analogue with China digital displays
• Solid Titanium
• Chronograph, 5 alarms, world time
• Unidirectional, rotating timer bezel
• Heat-tempered, anti-glare, Mineral crystal

Momentum Men's 1M-SP24B3C Format 4 Brown Wasser Leather Watch Review

Let me start by disclosing my biases. I'm allergic to both leather and base metal, which makes titanium watches (and bands) highly attractive to me. I'm also geeky enough to derive a certain pleasure from knowing that I'm wearing "exotic" materials, and as a diver I appreciate the aesthetic of many of the St. Moritz/Momentum watches. As a result, I own not just the Format 4 but also its predecessors the Format 2 and F3, and I would like to compare them in this review. The main things all three have in common are a titanium case and a combined analog/digital design.

The Format 2 was definitely dive-inspired, with a ratcheting bezel. It was relatively small (43 mm diameter, 11.5 mm thick), comparable to St. Moritz's simpler "field" watches like the Pathfinder but featured two LCD windows with black-on-gray displays in the otherwise dark gray watch face. These digital windows provided the usual functions (day and date, alarm, stopwatch, etc.) and a second time zone setting, and were reasonably legible by day though a bit too small to read easily at night with the blue backlight provided. The analog movement included a sweep second hand and adequately bright phosphors for the hands and hour markings, but no numerals. I liked this watch a lot because the original movement in mine was exceptionally accurate (at a minute or so of error per year) and because I could use the digital displays as a reference to reset the watch to a new time zone without losing even seconds of accuracy

The F3 (not "Format 3") was a substantial departure from the Format 2 at a substantially higher price point. For a start, it was much larger (48 mm diameter, 13 mm thick), had a prestigiously enormous sapphire crystal instead of glass, and did not include a dive-type bezel. Instead, the large face included numerals for every hour around the rim (with quite bright phosphors on the hands and the four cardinal hours but not the others) and a circular LCD screen filling the whole center of the dial. This display provided the usual functions, plus a "digital second hand" (marks around the perimeter of the display that appear as the minute progresses in all modes). The design of the LCD (small, dark gold characters on a black background) was elegant and reasonably legible by day, but completely useless for night use with the bluish backlight. The real news, however, was that the analog and digital functions were directly linked. The watch can store times in three zones (four, if you include one where it's forever noon, used for synchronizing the analog hands) and can easily "swap" one of the digital-only zones with the main analog-and-digital zone. This feature makes the F3 a real traveler's watch. The main downsides were the price, the poor visibility of the LCD display at night, the lack of a matching titanium band at the size needed, and some poor quality control (I had to return the watch 3 times before I got one in which the audible alarms were actually audible).

The Format 4 combines a lot of the best and a few of the lesser features of its predecessors. It is as large as the F3 but has a mineral glass crystal, ratcheting dive bezel, mechanical second hand, and two discrete LCD displays set into the analog face. The analog face is handsome and exceptionally readable by day, with bold numerals at the four cardinal points. The LCD displays are about twice as large as on the Format 2, with black numerals on a green background that are highly readable by day. They can also be turned off (black) to save power and/or look classier by disappearing into the black watch face...but the watch is not going to look especially "dressy" with that dive bezel. By night, the phosphors on the hands and hour marks are adequate and the digital displays are the most readable of the lot, truly practical. The digital movement includes the usual stopwatch, etc. The analog hands are not synchronized to the digital movement and have to be reset separately, but the watch understands the world time zones and standard/daylight time, so it is easy to update the digital time when visiting another zone, and fairly easy to reset the analog movement to match. The main shortcoming is that the date is displayed only in the "home" time zone. If you want to see the correct local date in your current location, you will basically have to reprogram the whole watch to make that your new "home". Thus, this is not as convenient for travelers as the F3.

With the Format 4, Momentum has released a very nice titanium bracelet in 22 mm width (ZC-22TTR10 -- see my review) but I couldn't find this band offered with the watch. I therefore selected the cheapest of the other bands (which turned out to be brown leather) and purchased the titanium band separately. I also bought one for my F3 watch to replace the third-party titanium band I had put on it some years ago.

The final point to discuss is the Momentum warranty and service policy. The watches typically are warranted for 2 years, but if you send them in and pay $65 Momentum will replace the battery, recalibrate the movement, test for water-tightness, extend the warranty and send the watch back to you. This process typically takes a bit over a week, so the higher price and time spent without one's favorite watch are stressful compared to having the battery replaced at a local shop, but local shops sometimes mess up and leave the watch leaky or even fry the movement by installing the wrong battery (this happened to my Format 2). On the whole, the service and warranty extension seem worthwhile, but beware -- Momentum tends to discontinue its watch designs after only a few years. At that point, they will do their best to replace the battery but will not extend the warranty on grounds that repair parts may not be available. My Format 2 and F3 are now in this unsupported status. It's a pity, because they are quality products and with a little help from the manufacturer they could probably be kept going, and going accurately, for decades.

Summing up, I am a great fan of St. Moritz/Momentum and all three of the Format series watches I've owned, for their features, accuracy, and non-allergenic titanium construction. I am rating the Format 4 only 4 stars instead of 5 because of the lack of analog/digital synchronization as in the F3 and because of the company's policy of not supporting their excellent watches over the long haul.

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