Fingers-On: Hublot Huge Bang MP-11 Water Blue Sapphire Watch
Pictures by Ed Rhee
If money isn’t a whole lot of a problem for you, possibly a color-hued sapphire crystal watch case is due? Do you recall just a few years previously that clear sapphire situations have been all the style? Hublot was one in all many early adopters of using synthetic sapphire crystals for watch situations, not prolonged after Richard Mille first debuted its seminal million-dollar-plus sapphire-cased timepiece. The first sapphire-case Hublot was the Hublot Huge Bang UNICO Sapphire, and since then, possibly no completely different mannequin has embraced sapphire crystal as a case supplies as loads. Though sapphire watches are nonetheless pretty expensive, the worth of constructing such watches has come down, and additional importantly, additional choice is available on the market by means of colors. That ought to help make clear some context behind this Hublot MP-11 Water Blue Sapphire that I’m going hands-on with as we communicate.
Synthetic sapphire crystal could also be created with loads of coloration tints. I am not an expert inside the formulation of synthetic sapphire, nonetheless I understand that it is attainable to insert pigmentation inside the formation course of. This pigmentation can result in very sturdy, deep colors, or simply add a coloration tint, resulting in a largely clear crystal formulation with a specific coloration hue. Hublot has taken advantage of this fact additional so than one other luxurious watch mannequin I can contemplate. In decrease than 10 years Hublot has launched sapphire watch situations in numerous colors (along with clear fashions as correctly) along with gray, yellow, orange, purple, and quite a lot of shades of blue. They identify this particular hue “water blue,” and it makes for a very pretty case coloration. Whereas clear sapphire situations are positively attention-grabbing, what many people have found is that colored sapphire situations are a bit additional fashionable. Not solely is it pretty an issue to match a strap to a clear sapphire case (I’ve not seen one however and never one of many semi-transparent clear straps enchantment to me), nonetheless it might be a bit too abstract for a lot of people to vogue them with their outfits. And positive, when spending any such money on a novelty luxurious timepiece, people positively do take note of strategies to placed on it and if it goes with one factor of their wardrobe (notably since most people don’t have clear or clear garments to pair such a timepiece with).
Hublot has certainly not instructed me exactly which colors work biggest, or the value elements that make the most of sense for its sapphire crystal situations. Hublot has experimented with sapphire watches costing ‘solely’ inside the tens of a whole lot of {{dollars}}, and means as a lot as distinctive bracelet-based fashions with tourbillons with a price of spherical half a million {{dollars}}. I consider the company is taking a rainbow methodology (every really and figuratively), by offering as loads choice as they will with sapphire watches along with by means of every colors and timepiece varieties. The place does the Hublot MP-11 (Masterpiece 11) Water Blue Sapphire slot in?
By benefit of it being an MP family watch, this product is unquestionably going to be additional high-end and distinctive. The MP-11 product is an attention-grabbing watch that mixes the Huge Bang case with a number of of Hublot’s prolonged power reserve know-how and and never utilizing a tourbillon. The in-house caliber HUB9011 manually-wound mechanical movement is a mixture of wearable dimension and prolonged power reserve. The movement doesn’t have the longer power reserve obtainable from Hublot, nonetheless it’s form of “traditionally wearable.” The Huge Bang vogue does nonetheless have to be particularly engineered to accommodate the stack of seven explicit particular person mainspring barrels which may be positioned using a horizontal orientation. Working at 3Hz, the HUB9011 has a robust power reserve of 14 days. It moreover has a drum-style power reserve indicator on the left side of the coupled mainspring barrel stack.
Given the realm required by the mainspring barrels, the case has an obvious “tempo bump.” This was on a regular basis part of the doorway sapphire crystal, and now (pretty attractively) that full type is built-in into the sapphire case. Whereas the “bump” simply is not per se partaking, Hublot does a powerful job of constructing a cohesive design for the case, such that the movement seems to be like like an distinctive mechanism versus an oddity positioned in a case that was certainly not really supposed for it. A watch identical to the MP-11, individually, is a reasonably good compromise between the desires of a reasonably wild mechanical movement, and the popularity of the Huge Bang UNICO-style case.
The skeletonized dial matches the transparency theme of the overall timepiece correctly. That moreover extends to the caseback view. Apart from the power reserve, the dial solely signifies the time by means of hours and minutes on a subsidiary dial (which is about as legible as might presumably be given the scale and complete skeletonization). The Hublot Huge Bang MP-11 case is 45mm huge and water resistant to a reasonably scant 30 meters. Making sapphire situations as waterproof as metal case continues to be one factor engineers try to work out. The rigidity of the case supplies as compared with metal is part of the difficulty. I’ve written so far that truly waterproof sapphire watch situations will have to be engineered using solely new concepts of assembly, rethinking how the elements match collectively. At current, most sapphire watches merely use the equivalent shapes which were supposed for metal watches (a material which will bend a bit with out breaking) nonetheless change standard components for these machined out of sapphire. I can’t wait to see the first 100 or 300-meter waterproof sapphire watch. Then Hublot could have a model new use for its “water blue” shade of sapphire crystal.
Hublot pairs the Huge Bang MP-11 Vitality Reserve 14 Days Water Blue Sapphire watch with an equivalent mild blue rubber strap, which can be eradicated merely as a consequence of Hublot’s quick-release system for the strap (though you should have one different appropriate Hublot strap to interchange it with). Sapphire watches are normally not for everyone, and whereas sapphire crystals are terribly laborious and scratch-resistant, they aren’t shock-resistant. A tricky drop could also be “lethal.” Which means it requires a specific type of collector who can every admire and baby these watches accurately. With that talked about, no plastic watch can actually compete with the entice and tactile sensation of sapphire (to not level out that clear plastic watches are inclined to age very poorly). That is the rationale this supplies has confirmed so compelling for use in high-end watches, and Hublot is usually on the vanguard of the pack. The Hublot Huge Bang MP-11 Vitality Reserve 14 Days Water Blue Sapphire (reference 911.JL.0129.RX) is made as a restricted model of fifty objects and has a retail worth of $171,000 USD. Examine additional on the Hublot site.
