Norqain Goes Two-Toned With New Neverest GMT

Another timezone is one of the more useful complications to have on your wrist. Even with a bit of Googling it’s still a right faff to work out what -8 UTC is before you give your mate in Peru a call. And there’s always that nagging feeling, ‘have I got that right or am I about to wake him up in the middle of the night?’ A GMT gives you certainty (and confidence you won’t) at a glance.

Norqain have had this GMT base covered for a while now. Their Adventure range’s Neverest model has offered you the choice of a rather exotic green and black GMT, a PVD-cased orange and black or a straight steel-cased blue and black option. Now there’s another Neverest but this time it comes in a rather elegant red gold, black and stainless steel flavour.  

It’s a striking looking watch. The quicker-minded among you might already be thinking of other watches with a similar combination of metals where you’d have to spend a lot more money. This new Norqain will set you back just $5,500 with a bracelet, $5,460 on a rubber strap with a clasp and $5,290 for a rubber strap with a buckle.

The dial features Norqain’s own ‘mountain range’ pattern (although it looks a little like carbon fibre weave), and the strong contrast with the gold hands makes it simple to read. Just as simple at night too; the hands and indices are inset with X1 Superluminova. If you’ve ever been fed up with fading, hard-to-see lume, this is for you. Apparently it’s around 60% stronger than standard SL – and that’s bright enough on its own. There; you can even try a little watch maths; “yeah, I’ll get this so I won’t need that expensive LED torch…”  Well, nearly. 

Those hands are faceted too, with the running second hand getting a white pointer and the GMT hand standing out with its red tip. This latter runs around a gold GMT half-ring from 18:00 to 6:00 to show night hours and a white half-ring from 06:00 to 18:00 to cover daytime.  

The bezel is 18ct red gold with a ceramic insert (no fading around here, thank you), so you can do the neat trick of running three time zones by moving the bezel.  You can’t have all three at once, just two at the same time, but it’s still a really useful feature if you’re traveling or even just calling people overseas. It’s not a diving bezel, so being unidirectional with a detent would make it harder to use, instead Norqain have thoughtfully made it as a bidirectional bezel and given it a knurled edge to make it easier to turn both ways. There’s still a lumed pip at 12, though, so even at night you can work out where you are. 

The 41mm case is gold old 316L stainless, so will quite happily take all the battering that everyday life will chuck at it without too much problem. It’s water-resistant to 10bar and the crown and caseback both screw down tightly so it definitely makes it into holiday watch territory too. You get a double anti-reflective, scratch-proof box type sapphire on the front, so things stay easy and clear and the caseback, likewise, uses scratch-proof sapphire glass. 

Inside the case is the Norqain NN20/2 with its GMT complication. The GMT is, unusually, a jump hour, so it’s a cinch to move your timezone forwards or backwards. It’s a partnership between Geneva-based maker Kenissi (who also produce movements for Chanel and Tudor). This may be the ideal world between having a movement that’s interesting and unusual but also having spares back-up, should you need it, and no daft servicing costs. There are some dedicated Norqain features with the personalised bridge (Adventure – Freedom – Independence) and the oscillating weight also features the maker’s name. 

It’s an automatic movement running at 28,800 vibrations per hour (4Hz) with a decent 70 hours of reserve power should you actually want to take it off. Shock-absorbing for the balance and spring (the most sensitive parts of the movement) is down to the known and useful Incabloc system and the rest of the movement looks industrial without being in any way ugly. It’s not just for looks though; the balance bridge is screwed down at both ends, making it more stable as well as helping dissipate shocks. Rolex uses the same double-anchor point. This isn’t a watch you’ll need to fuss over. It’ll just do the job pretty much whatever the conditions.

Norqain are donating 10% of the earnings of NEVEREST sales to the Butterfly Help Project. This organisation helps families of sherpas who have lost their lives in the Himalayan mountains and give their children an education. That’s a worthwhile cause if ever we’ve seen one. 

So should you buy yourself a Neverest GMT? Well, as we’ve already alluded, there are other watches out there offering similar things but with the sort of price tag you’d see on the windscreen of a decent car. Norqain’s offering gives you all the same functionality and solidity but at a very much more reasonable price. The Kenissi movement means you don’t have to plump for a dull motor either, there’s lots of interest there. This is easily the sort of watch you could buy if you were one of those normal people who only has one watch – it does everything and does it very well indeed. At the same time, there’s enough interest and difference to appeal to those of us who are afflicted horophiles. Norqain.