This Rugged Adventure Watch Is As Good As It Gets at This Price

Although the brand has very little presence in the U.S., Certina is highly regarded as a hidden gem within the watch enthusiast community.

Positioned as one of the most affordable brands within the massive Swatch Group, Certina has access to resources and technologies that elude its competition, enabling it to offer supreme value and specs at a low price point.

The brand’s latest effort is a quartz-powered GMT priced well below $1,000 and boasting a combination of details that make it one of the most capable adventure travel watches on the market… including one nifty feature I’ve never seen before.

Certina

The Ultimate Affordable Adventure Watch?

When I say the new Certina DS-X GMT is one of the most capable adventure travel watches out there, I’m not kidding.

For starters, it has all of the specs I would expect in such a watch: a 41mm case made of 316L stainless steel, crown guards, Super-LumiNova on the hands and indices, 200m of water resistance, a sapphire crystal and your choice of a three-link steel bracelet or fitted rubber strap; both equipped with a quick-release system.

Then there’s the movement. Yes, it’s quartz, but that’s actually not a bad thing in this case. Quartz movements are both more accurate and more shock-resistant than their mechanical counterparts, two attributes that come in handy during adventurous excursions.

Certina

But Certina takes things a couple of steps further. The movement is an ETA quartz calibre equipped with Heavy Drive, a relatively new proprietary technology that allows for intelligent shock resistance of the hands — the movement will automatically lock the hands in place during a shock to prevent misalignment.

The watch is also equipped with Certina’s new DS Concept Extreme Shock Resistance system, which debuted earlier this year as a more robust take on the brand’s classic DS Concept system. It combines a reinforced sapphire crystal with a thin metal plate between the dial and movement, plus a screw-in movement holder. These updates allow the watch to withstand G-forces that “far exceed” ISO 1413 standards.

Certina

A One-of-a-Kind Bezel

But perhaps best of all is the bezel setup on the DS-X GMT, which is something I don’t recall ever having seen before.

The external bezel consists of two parts. The inner part is your typical day-night 24-hour bezel for the GMT, and to operate it, you press down and turn it like opening a pill bottle. The outside of the bezel features compass markings, and it’s a friction-fit setup that you can turn separately. This makes it easier to use your watch as a compass using its hands and the sun.

While I’ve seen dual-function external bezels before, I’ve never seen one that works the same way this one does, nor one that combines these two features to be used independently of one another. It’s a nice bit of innovation at an unbeatable price point that really hammers home the outdoor travel capabilities of this watch.

Pricing and Availability

The DS-X GMT is a quartz-powered Certina, meaning the watch is almost unbelievably affordable.

On a steel bracelet, which is available with black/green or black/red bezels, it’s CHF 520 (~$652). On a rubber strap, it retails for just CHF 495 (~$620). Both the black/green and black/red versions are also available on black rubber, and there’s also a third rubber option that happens to be my pick of the bunch: a white dial with a blue strap and blue/orange bezel. Let’s go, Knicks!

Certina

Certina DS-X GMT

Specs

Case Size	41mm
Movement	ETA F06.865 quartz GMT
Water Resistance	200m

• $652 at Certina

Related Topics