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The first standard production watch with the Breitling B19 Perpetual Calendar movement of course had to be a Navitimer. Upon its release, I knew I had to get my hands on it for a review. Thanks to the team at Breitling, I’ve been able to do just that.

When you think of Breitling, one of the first, if not the first model that comes to mind is the Navitimer. Not only is it one of Breitling’s most iconic models, but one of the most iconic watches out there thanks to its history, unique slide-rule bezel and overall design cues that make it stand out. You can easily recognise a Navitimer on the wrist from a distance. In that regard, it’s up there with the Submariner, the Speedmaster, the Luminor, and the Royal Oak to name but a few. So it stands to reason that it was one of the models to receive the new in-house B19 Perpetual Calendar movement as part of Breitling’s 140th Anniversary Collection.

Breitling CEO, Georges Kern said when these were announced that those three models, the Navitimer, Premier and Super Chronomat were chosen as they couldn’t pick just one iconic watch to add this to, so they chose the three most iconic in the Breitling stable. However, to me, the Navitimer stood out against the rest. Why? It’s a Navitimer and what’s more Breitling than a Navitimer? Ok, it is a rhetorical question and maybe a little biased and subjective, but you get my point!

It would make sense that this movement would make its way into the normal collection at some point, and thankfully in March, it did with the release of the 43mm Navitimer with the B19 Perpetual Calendar movement inside, and to top this off, a magical ice blue dial to give it that wow factor.

First Impressions

Watch renders online are funny. They either make an ordinary watch look amazing, or they can really tone down how it looks in real life. In my experience, it is about 50/50 and this means that you can be either pleasantly surprised or very let down. The latter is never good. When I saw the press images for the Navitimer B19 Chronograph Perpetual Calendar, I thought to myself, “Ok, this looks amazing in these pics” which if you refer to my previous statement could end up being very true, or end with bitter disappointment when seeing it in the metal. Thankfully, it was the former, it is a VERY good-looking watch.

Interestingly I have never owned a Navitimer for one reason or another. Even though I have had Breitling watches in the past – a 48mm Super Avenger in my big watch days a decade ago, and more recently a SuperOcean Heritage Chronograph a few years ago, never a Navitimer. It is something I slightly regret as a watch collector and when asked why, I can’t honestly say why I never picked one up. But, everything happens for a reason and maybe it just wasn’t the right time, or I never found the right version for me. Until now…

You know a watch makes a good first impression when you find yourself smiling when taking it out of the box. Like a kid opening up a much anticipated present on Christmas morning, except you are 44 years old and drinking a double-shot cappuccino at a cafe opening a watch box up with an ice blue dial staring you back in the face. Ok, I’m hooked, and I’m looking forward to the next week or so being able to wear the Navitimer Perpetual Calendar around and seeing if it lives up to expectations.

The Design

As I wrote in my opening paragraphs, the Navitimer is an icon of not just Breitling’s collections, but also the watch world. You can spot a Navitimer Chronograph a mile off with its dial configuration and the unique slide rule bezel. Originally designed for pilots in 1952 via the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), it was one of the first watches that were able to do complex calculations on the fly (or while flying in this case), the world’s first wristwatch flight computer. Interestingly, the slide rule bezel was actually adapted from the original Breitling Chronomat, which back in 1942 was a watch made for mathematicians to do advanced calculations on, hence the name, Chronograph Mathematique, or Chronomat. 10 years later, the Navitimer took this function and used it to help aviators worldwide, and it was a hit.

That little bit of history aside, the new Navitimer B19 Chronograph is every bit a Navitimer, just with a Perpetual Calendar added to the mix. To make this piece a little more special, Breitling has given the Navitimer B19 Chronograph an ice blue dial, that stands out and with this, a platinum bezel with the iconic slide rule to help do calculations on the fly. The domed crystal also stands out as this runs to the edges of the bezel, giving the watch a slightly different look to that of a conventional crystal that sits within the confines of the bezel itself.

As this is a perpetual calendar, meaning once the date is set, the watch will accurately display the day, date, month, leap year and moon phase correctly until the year 2100 without the need for adjusting the dates based on a 30 or 31-day month and taking into account February’s 28 or 29-day duration depending on if it is a leap year or not. These are all displayed on the dial in a nice symmetrical manner.

At 12 o’clock, there is a moon phase aperture that tracks the moon across the sky every 29.5 days. At 3 o’clock, you track the date with the outer track and blue hands, and the chronograph minutes in the inner with the silver hand. At 6 o’clock, the month on the outer, and on the inner, the leap year. (Just note, while I set the calendar up to wear it accurately, I did not do the leap year, as it wasn’t going to affect it while I had the watch at all.) At 9 o’clock, you track the day of the week on the outer and the running seconds hand (small seconds) on the inner.

On the side of the case, you have the day of the week and the moon phase correctors. These make adjusting the day and moon phases easy by using the corrector tool to advance each. I’ll talk more about this in the movement section, but thought it worthwhile noting here as they do feature on the case side. And speaking of the case, this is the 43mm case size, which is fairly standard for the Navitimer collection. Even though the case thickness is around 1mm thicker than your standard 43mm Navitimer Chronograph, this being 14.94mm due to the Perpetual Calendar, the case itself with the design does mask some of this somewhat thanks to it being broken up by the bezel, domes crystal and the screw in case back. The slim, tapered lugs aid with this too, not to mention the wearability of the watch.

The crown, like all Navitimers, is a pull-out crown and as such, the Navitimer B19 has a 30m water resistance. This is pretty common with Perpetual Calendars, but saying this, I would still love for the Navitimer to have at least 50m so it was swimmable. Yes, swimming with a leather strap isn’t something you would do, but on the bracelet you could should you have this on the wrist at a resort or another situation that involves water. It is a small thing, but something I felt mentioning as it is what I do look for in an everyday watch. However, should I own this, I have other watches for this task, as I would imagine anyone who would own a Perpetual Calendar would as well.

How It Wears

I’m not a huge fan of smaller watches, but on the flip side, I don’t want a massive watch either. I’ve stated before that while the range of watch sizes I can comfortably wear is really from 40mm to about 44mm, with maybe a plus or minus 1mm on either side depending on the design. 41mm is probably the sweet spot, but, there are caveats, mainly the design. Some watches will feel different to the specs on paper, and I’ve found that the Navitimer wears smaller in the 41mm, whereas the conventional 43mm chronograph seems to be what I prefer based on my wrist size of 17.5cm.

At 43 mm it is not a small watch but, the way the lugs taper down help the watch to sit comfortably on the wrist. And even though this piece is just shy of 15 mm thick, the design of both the case, bezel, and domed sapphire glass assists with how this piece fits, wears, and appears. To illustrate this point, on the weekend I was out and about at my Daughter’s dancing concert. One of the Dads that I know who is also a massive watch fan, commented on the fact that it actually looked really good, even for a bigger piece – and he is a guy that loves smaller watches and more vintage watches. He also commented on the fact that the proportions of the Navtimer work really well. And this is part of the point when looking at watch sizes. Proportions, it is everything when it comes to wearability.

And I would tend to have to agree with him. The other thing that assists with how this piece looks and feels on the wrist is the dial design and colours. The black outer track that allows you to measure time and distance helps slim this piece down as your eyes are drawn to the ice-blue dial. Coupled with this, the fact that the bezel is effectively nonexistent from the top, (you can only see the small bit of knurling on the outside), again makes this watch feel a little bit smaller than it actually is on the wrist.

The black alligator strap with deploy buckle suits the piece incredibly well and to be honest, it’s one of those watches that I would probably never swap out for something other than a leather strap. I would possibly consider a rubber strap on this just to make it a bit better to wear in the summer months, however, it would have to be the right style of rubber that wasn’t too sporty and maybe retained more of an authentic look. After all, the Navitimer was a pilots watch, and when it was designed, it was designed to be on a leather strap. Yes, you have the option to get this on the steel bracelet, but I feel that to do this watch justice, you have to put it on something that talks to its history. I was thinking the other day there are certain watches out there that just lend themselves to certain strap or bracelet combinations, and those pieces, for me at least, I wouldn’t want to change. The Navitimer is one of those watches.

My one small grip with the strap though is the reverse way of wearing it. Now, a lot of watch brands are doing this these days where the buckle folds out away from you, not towards you, so the outside of the strap is threaded through the strap minder towards the body and not away from it. I mentioned this in my review of the Breitling Chronomat a while back, and I didn’t love the way it threaded towards the body as it does have the ability to catch on your clothes as you’re walking. Now some people love this and love the look, and it does have its benefits. However, it is a personal taste thing for me, and I’m not the biggest fan. Should I own this piece, and I’ll say outright that this is a piece that I now have my eye on, I’d probably change the direction of the strap so it suits my style better.

The other thing I love about the Breitling Navy timer is that it can elevate an outfit. When it comes to my dress, for the most part, I am in jeans and a T-shirt. Wearing the Navitimer B19 Chronograph makes this look that little more elevated, like a nice crisp white tee and designer jeans can. (Slight hint of sarcastic humour there!) However, you can wear it with almost anything, to be honest, and it’s going to look great. The black alligator strap has a dress watch feel to it. The blue dial just shines, and the knurling on the platinum bezel catches the sunlight or if you’re inside, well-angled downlights will do as well.

Putting the size of the watch aside, you could quite easily wear this with a suit I feel, and to be honest, if I had a formal function while I had the watch for review, I would have definitely put it on my wrist. Now it may not fit under a cuff that’s been done up, let’s face it, but you could probably just not do the cuff up, or sit the cuff so the watch is in full view. And, with a piece like this, why wouldn’t you want to see it on your wrist all the time and show it off? This point is really demonstrated in the above images with Champs wearing it with his blazer on his 16.5cm wrist.

The Movement 

As I mentioned earlier in the article and as we covered last year, the movement inside the new Breitling B19 Chronograph 43 Perpetual Calendar is the in-house calibre B19. This has both the benefits of a chronograph as well as a perpetual calendar with a moon phase, a complication I personally love. This movement is on display via the case back, as it should be, and like all Breitling movements, is finished well with the skeleton rotor, the Côtes de Genève decorations on the bridges and with enough cut-aways in the bridges to see the movement revealed. Beating at 4Hz and with an impressive 96-hour / 4-day power reserve, it will keep you out of trouble!

Operating the watch was actually pretty simple in terms of setting the time day, date month and moon phase. To set the time, you just pull out the crown to the third position and cycle around to the desired time, then in the second position, you can turn the crown to cycle through the date, which in turn will cycle the months and eventually the leap year. To set the correct day of the week, you simply press the corrector at 8 o’clock until you get to the right day. Lastly, you can use the corrector at 10 o’clock to set the right moon phase.

The great thing is, Breitling has a moon phase reference how-to guide on the website. This means you can see exactly what part of the moon phase you are in based on your local time and get it correct. Like any perpetual calendar though, it is a little bit fiddly and time-consuming to initially set up the watch. It will probably take you five or six minutes to set the calendar up properly, depending on the leap year’s setting, but once done, you won’t need to do it again for another 80 years or so. And by that time you’re probably not going to be worried about it all that much – that’s the next generation’s problem!

Outside of the perpetual calendar movement, the Navitimer at its heart is a chronograph. So, like any chronograph I have for review, I always test the pushers out and the tactility of them and the movement. The pushers are in that classic pilot’s mushroom style and the start function is crisp. It’s not laggy or too stiff which is good when it comes to column wheel chronograph movement and the reset function has the same tactility, as does the stop function.

Final Thoughts

I don’t believe in the perfect watch. But, I do believe in watches you can just fall in love with, because at the end of the day, watch brands cannot make watches for every single person’s individual tastes, not to mention all the little nuances that we watch geeks as well as the general public have when it comes to buying watches. A prime example of that are found in several of the pieces I own and love. There are still things in those pieces that I would change if I were designing them for me specifically but, you can’t make money as a business if you made a watch for every single person’s taste. Well, you can, but then you’re making small numbers and charging bespoke prices accordingly. But generally speaking, you design a watch to be the best it can be based on what it will be used for. Everyone has different sizes, different likes different dislikes, and different styles, so when you are making a piece, you’re trying to tick a lot of boxes for a lot of people.

So because of this, no watch can ever be perfect, but there are perfect watches for you and for me. After wearing the Navitimer B19 Chronograph for over a week, I have to say this is a watch for me. Would I like it to be just a little bit smaller on the wrist – maybe 42mm in diameter and maybe just a little bit thinner? Well, the answer is yes, that would be nice. But, is it going to worry me on a daily basis? Clearly not because I wore it every day for the last week and I’ve loved it. Does it wear quite as well as some other watches? Not quite, but this is probably because it’s got a brand new leather strap, and leather just takes a while to break in, something I have found with every other leather strap I’ve worn and owned. But regardless of the flaws of a watch, which are really subjective down to the person who is wearing it, sometimes love is love, and I do love this Navitimer B19 Chronograph Perpetual Calendar.

The only thing from stopping me buying this piece is the fact that I don’t have a spare $43,590 that I can put towards this piece, not that it’s expensive for a Perpetual Calendar. In all honesty, it’s great value for money when you consider what else is out there on the market. Many Perpetual Calendars are in precious metals, and those that are in steel from the more mainstream brands, i.e., not brands like Vacheron or AP, then most of these are still over A$50,000. The Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Perpetual Calendar now is A$58,500 – it does have more water resistance and comes with a bracelet and strap as standard, is a little smaller and slimmer, but has less power reserve and is not a chronograph. The new IWC Ingenieur is A$57,000, slightly smaller at 41mm but wears bigger than the specs suggest. Outside of these, most others then start edging A$80,000+ thanks to the cases made from precious metal. Essentially in comparison, this shows that the Breitling B19 Chronograph Perpetual Calendar is great value for money when placed against others in the same category.

I said at the start of the article that the new B1 calibre was most probably going to start making its way into the current collections after the launch of the 140th Anniversary collection last year and obviously, the new Navitimer B19 Chronograph 43 Perpetual Calendar this is the start. And what a great start it is as well!

References: PB1920251C1A1 (Bracelet) / PB1920251C1P1 (Leather)

Specifications:

• Dimensions: 43mm x 14.94mm and 49.07mm lug-to-lug.
• Case Material: Brushed and polished steel with a platinum bezel
• Dial: Ice-blue sunray dial with a moonphase, day/date/month/leap year indicators & chronograph seconds, 30-minute register & small seconds.
• Movement: In-house Calibre B19 perpetual calendar chronograph movement.
• Movement Frequency: 28,800 VpH (4hZ)
• Movement Power reserve: 96hrs
• Water resistance: 30m
• Crystal: Sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating
• Case back: Sapphire case back with anti-reflective coating
• Bracelet/Strap: Black alligator with steel folding clasp or stainless steel seven-row bracelet with a butterfly clasp

Australian RRP: A$44,290 on bracelet or A$43,590 on leather

Availability: Available now via Breitling.com or see your local Breitling Boutique or authorised retailer.

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