Review of Tudor Black Bay GMT (1.5 Months)

I received my 1st piece of Tudor Black Bay GMT a while back, which I have been waiting for since it was launched during the Baselworld 2018 in March 2018. Mine was dated 31/8/2018, which was pretty cool since it was Malaysia's national day.

I wanted to do a 1st impression back then, but thereafter decided to hold on for a bit and go with a review after some proper wrist times. Well, after 1.5 months, I have learnt a fair bit about this piece and has been very much charmed by this quaint piece. It ain't no Rolex GMT-Master ii, but it had held its head high throughout all these times.

Mine was the bracelet version, the cream of the crop amongst the 3 models for this GMT, namely with Nato canvas, leather strap, or stainless steel riveted bracelet. A piece of advice was always to pay the extra for the bracelet as it would be relatively easy to track down a suitable Nato or leather strap to match with the watch. 

On the other hand, finding a stainless steel bracelet ain't an easy affair- a reader whom asked to buy the bracelet from one of my Tudor BB GMT adverts @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2018/09/sold-tudor-black-bay-gmt-pepsi-model-no.html and http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2018/10/wts-tudor-black-bay-gmt-pepsi-model-no.html informed that he purchased the Nato package as it was the easiest to find of the three, and thought that he could easily purchase a bracelet at Rolex as was suggested by the seller. Instead, not only was the bracelet expensive to purchase as a standalone, Rolex wanted to check and ensure that the watch was paired with a bracelet in order to sell him the same. So he was left in a bit of a fix.

I have currently paired mine with the Crafter Blue navy blue and red vulcanised rubber strap. Priced at USD75 before shipping, this strap was essentially designed with the BB GMT in mind, so it matched the watch perfectly.

I have received lots of compliments wearing it in this manner out in the wild. While the bracelet had it looking more sombre and vintage (with the riveted sides), the rubber strap brought out its more colourful side and made it more fun to wear. The fact that I have not seen any other BB GMT dressed in this manner, probably made it all the more cool to wear.

The BB GMT came with a Tudor in-house movement good for 70 hours of power reserve. It was COSC-certified and had not missed a beat, a feat that was no surprised given that it was designed by Rolex after all.

BB GMT almost looks like the love child of both these pieces- GMT and colours :)

Compared to the Rolex 16710, 116710LN, and 116710BLNR that I had, I find that the BB GMT performed up to par with its Rolex siblings that cost a few times of the BB GMT. Therefore, to say that the BB GMT was an incredible buy at its price, was the statement of the year indeed.

For anyone whom travels loads, this BB GMT should serve you really well. If you have always wanted to invest towards an attractive GMT piece with at least 200m water resistance to match the diver watches, yet minus the Rolex pricing, the closest call then was the Omega Planet Ocean GMT. 

Well, the throne would now go to the BB GMT. It had so much more pros and versatility at a steal of a price that it had simply blown the competition out of the waters.

I have had a couple of Tudor pieces prior to this, namely the Black Bay and Pelagos models, and the BB GMT had simply raised the bar for all other future Tudor pieces. If you were still on the fence for this piece, throw caution to the wind and march yourself to a Rolex/Tudor AD and put your name on the 1-year waiting list. Or you could skip the queue and grab the last new piece that I still have on hand @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2018/10/wts-tudor-black-bay-gmt-pepsi-model-no.html, and have this adorning your wrist and grinning from ear to ear.

Tudor has a winner in the BB GMT, and my guess was that they knew it too. The growing waiting list was testament of this fact, and this was currently the only piece from Tudor that actually commanded a premium over RRP and was always out of stock.

Have fun wearing yours too, dear readers!