SONGDU Mens Black Military Watch

The watch casing is stainless steel finished with an electrostatic black coating. It measures 40mm wide by 51mm long and 11mm thick. While these numbers are reasonable for a watch, it does have decent wrist presence.

The watch uses a single crown to alter the date and time, where for the time the crown must be fully extended and for the date it must be half extended. (Note that watches which display a day number must operate on a 24 hour system in order for it to update.) The crown is of a decent size and it does not interfere in any way when the watch is worn.

The watch also feature two buttons, one at 2 o’clock and another at 4 o’clock. These are used to start/ stop and reset the chronograph. Again these buttons do not interfere when the watch is worn.

The dial is a little complicated in its presentation. It is black in colour and uses blue and white for the markers and text. The markers featured use a Submariner like style where the 12 o’clock marker is triangle shaped and the markers at three, six and nine are simple bars. The remaining markers display the position with an Arabic number in a clear blue font. On the outer dial the seconds are identified with an Arabic number in clear white font every five seconds (except for 0, 15, 30 and 45 seconds), with white markers in-between.

The day number is displayed next to the three o’clock position on the dial and it displays three consecutive day numbers with the middle number identifying the current day (if you wish to set it as such). To the left of the day number is the Songdu name in clear white text.

The chronograph is made up of three dials: tenths of seconds, seconds and minutes. The button in the 2 o’clock position starts the chronograph and for the first minute alone the tenths of seconds dial will operate. The seconds dial and the minutes dial will continue to keep track of the elapsed time. The chronograph is stopped by pressing the 2 o’clock button again so that the elapsed time can be read off. The dials then reset by pressing the button in the 4 o’clock position (which may take some time as the seconds dial may need to complete several rotations).

The hands are classic pointed swords, painted black with a blue fill in the centre. The hour hand is notably smaller, giving the minute hand much more presence against the dial. The second hand is a long needle which is painted blue to match the other two, and the counterweight is also painted blue.

The dial window is made from a synthetic-sapphire which aids in clarity and minimises distortion.

The lume is where this watch falls short. The luminosity of the numbers and markings is terrible, only lasting a few seconds before fading. There is no lume on the hands at all so telling the time at night is impossible. The clearest and longest running luminosity is on the hands of the chronograph, making it the only feature you can use at night.

The bracelet is durable and well built. Note that as with any watch you’ll need to have it adjusted to fit your wrist. This can be done at jewellers or you can purchase a kit to do it at home. The clasp uses the classic oyster style with ratcheting system, being released by depressing the two buttons either-side. The links are tightly interlinked and fit comfortably on the wrist without catching wrist hair.

Overall this is a very good watch, both for casual and formal wear. For its full retail price it is a little steep at £59.99, but at the time of writing the watch is discount to a far more reasonable £32.99.

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