I’m a sucker for a good panda dial, but after a while, they can all start to look pretty similar.
That’s what caught my eye about Brellum’s latest addition to its Pandial series of chronographs with contrasting subdials. Here was a panda-dial chronograph in the most classic setup — a white dial, black subdials and black tachymeter bezel — but there was something different about it.
Instead of the usual two or three subdials, this Pandial has four. This not only sets it apart from other chronographs in the Pandial collection, but I’m also struggling to think of another automatic panda-dial chronograph with four functional subdials. You’ve got the Universal Geneve Tri-Compax, but that’s been discontinued for what, 50 years? (Though it may come back.)
So, how did Brellum pull this off?
Panda power
Unlike the Universal Geneve mentioned above, the Brellum doesn’t use its fourth subdial to display a pointer date and moonphase. The watch does feature a date, but it’s a discreet window at 6:00, with its white-on-black color scheme perfectly blending into the 12-hour totalizer within which it’s placed.
At 12:00, the Pandial features a 30-minute totalizer for the chrono, and at 9:00, we have our running seconds indicator. That’s where most chronographs call it quits, but Brellum adds a little something extra for the fourth register at 3:00.
