complications

Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega 4: Ups State Of World's Most Complex Watch

Another year and another "world's most complicated watch." Also the 4th in the coveted Franck Muller Aeternitas watch series of high complex watches that are either amazing looking or ludicrous looking - depending on how you see it. The financially troubled brand is putting the finishing touches on this limited series (of no specific disclosed amount) watch (even though the first of them was already finished and presented to an American watch collector recently at a dinner). Inside are a whopping 36 complications! I am not going to list them all here, but you can consult with the image in the gallery below for a spec sheet of the various functions that it has. 25 of the 36 complications are visible on the dial. Franck Muller is surprisingly brief on the details. We don't know materials or size of the watch yet. I would imagine that it is on the larger side though. The movement has 1,483 parts to it! Wow, talk about complex and fragile. The watch took 5 years to design.

Some functions include, but are not limited to, a monopusher split-second chronograph (no idea how that is done with one button), a 1000 year calendar, very accurate equation of time (between solar and clock time), complex sonnerie chiming functions, multiple timezones, moon phase indicator, and of course, more. The obvious competitor to the Aeternitas Mega 4 watch is the recently released Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Grande Sonnerie watch. While the Hybris Mechanica only has 25 complications, it is arguably more pleasing to the eyes. Plus, for a bit less price you get three watches and a fancy safe.

The Franck Muller Aeternitas 4 watch is the high horology equivalent of a fancy Texas Instruments graphing calculator. Sure it does a lot and it gets us mechanical nerds excited, but it isn't going to get you any action from the ladies (but sharing with them the price tag of $2.7 million might).

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com

Gallery: Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega 4

Tags: 4, Aeternitas, complex, complications, Franck Muller, FranckMuller, mega, most, watch

Vacheron Constantin Malte Complications For The Ladies

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

Over on Time Zone there are pictures of the latest version of Vacheron Constantin's Malte collection for women. The latest model, Ref. 83505 is a moonphase power reserve model with 184 diamonds. It measures a ladylike 29mm, is water resistant to 30 meters and has a transparent caseback. The movement is the Vacheron manual wind caliber 1410, with 22 jewels beating at 28,800 bph and with a power reserve of 40 hours.%uFFFD It's attractive but I prefer the Ref. 83500 (shown after the jump). It has similar features but at 32 mm, it's a touch larger, uses less diamonds (only 82) and has, in my opinion, a much more attractive dial.

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Tags: complicated watches, complications, luxist, luxury, timepieces, vacheron constantin malte, VacheronConstantinMalte, watches