At last year’s GPHG Awards, colloquially referred to as the Oscars for watches, one of the biggest shockers of the night was Ming taking home the prize for Best Sports Watch, beating out far bigger and more traditionally sporty brands, including Tudor, IWC and Zenith.
But that’s not to say in any way that Ming’s victory was undeserved. The 37.09 Bluefin diver that won is a highly innovative and attractive dive watch that packs 600m of water resistance into a compact and incredibly comfortable case while also featuring a unique innovation typical of Ming: instead of an internally rotating bezel, the watch’s second crown rotates the entire sapphire dial on which the dive scale is printed — in Super-LumiNova, of course.
Ming followed up the Bluefin with a blacked-out version called the Uni, and now the brand is once again revisiting its 37-Series diver architecture with its first-ever GMT diver, the 37.11 Odyssey. I’ve spent the past week with the watch, and let’s just say I won’t be surprised if the watch picks up some hardware at next year’s GPHG Awards.
An award-worthy GMT
I’ve never tried on a Ming that was anywhere near uncomfortable, but even for a brand that has wrist ergonomics down to an exact science, the Odyssey stands out for its unsurpassed comfort. It measures 38mm across, 12.6mm thick and 44.5mm lug-to-lug, but feels even smaller on the wrist thanks in part to the curved lugs of the 37-Series case. Despite its automatic GMT movement, it’s just as slim the Bluefin, thanks to that watch’s 600m water resistance being halved to a still highly capable 300m rating here.
The fully brushed case is made of pure Grade 2 titanium, so it’s exceptionally light. Physically, the watch disappears on the wrist, but visually, it does no such thing. Thanks to the thin bezel and expansive dial of the 37-Series case, the Odyssey has plenty of wrist presence, even though I continually forgot I was wearing it. (True story: I forgot to take it off while sanding down some drywall, and it got covered in white dust. Nothing a quick rinse under the faucet couldn’t fix; thanks, 300m water resistance!)