Yesterday, we started our tour around the Wenger Squadron Chronograph, the first Swiss Army piece we’ve done a hands-on review with here at WWR. Today, we’ll wrap up our review of the piece.
As I mentioned near the end of yesterday’s writeup, this is a relatively thin and light watch. Combined with the rubber (not resin) strap, this makes for a very comfortably-wearing piece. In terms of using it, the face (even with the skeleton hands) is very readable, day or night, and the chrono functions work as expected.
You’ll also notice that the start-stop pusher has a red ring on it to set it apart. Not a necessary detail for anyone remotely familiar with a chrono, but a nice design detail. Another interesting design detail comes into play with the uni-directional bezel. If you look closely, you’ll see that there’s actually an arrow indicating the direction of rotation. Again, not something necessary, but still a nice touch (also? The lume pip was outstanding).
Now, there were some design elements that I wasn’t as fond of. You’ll notice that the chrono registers are encircled, whereas the sub-seconds dial is just “there”. This leads to a bit of an unbalanced feel. This off-kilter feeling continues on with the numerals that are actually displayed on the dial.
It’s not the normal 12 and 6, or 12-3-6-9 that we’re used to seeing when you don’t have the full set. To some, this might be of visual interest, but for me, it was a bit of a distraction in the overall look and feel of the piece.
Taken as a whole, I come down on the positive side with this watch, as the overall aesthetics, fit, and design additions overcome the off-balance feeling that I picked up from some elements. While Wenger themselves list the MSRP at $495, I was able to find some variants of this model over on Amazon for $250-$300.
And let us know – if there’s another “Swiss Army” watch you’d love us to have a look at (from Wenger, Victorinox, or someone else), post up your suggestions in the comments below.
