While it’s not a new model, the Reactor Neutron Automatic I’ve been wearing for a week still looks like it could have been designed yesterday. This particular watch, Reactor’s only automatic offering in a collection of Neutron quartz chronographs, is a 45.5mm solid steel three-hander with date. It’s not a bold chronograph like its siblings, but it remains just as tough as any of Reactor’s numerous models, all of which are built to survive all manner of hard-core outdoor rambunctiousness.
This model’s brilliant marker luminescence and deeply knurled bezel, crown and bracelet attachment do serve to betray the watch’s inner sportiness, but its three-dimensional carbon fiber dial with its subdued Reactor logo and almost hidden inner seconds track give it an overall cooler appearance. The Neutron Automatic is a large, fairly heavy watch (at 245 grams) for sure, especially with its solid steel bracelet, but such mass only underscores Reactor’s own tenet that its watches are built to ‘survive the decidedly non-sedentary lifestyle’ of its customers.
In order to ensure that toughness, Reactor says its builds each of its California-designed timepieces with solid forged cases, screw-down crowns, solid screw bars, SuperLuminova markings and a solid forged caseback. All of those features are here and clear, but it’s the solid screw bars that, to my eyes, differentiate Reactor’s design and its performance from so many other sport watch makers.
Spring bars, which hold bracelets to their lugs, are the weak point of most watches, points out Reactor’s founder and chief designer Jimmy Olmes. Therefore, he eliminated spring bars entirely.
“All our bands attach via a solid, threaded screw bar, providing at least a 500% increase in strength,” he notes. His boast is not idle marketing chatter: You can see the performance results on the Reactor YouTube channel, linked on its website, and Reactor customers frequently back his claims on watch forums.
Olmes focuses much of his design and tooling to ensure Reactor’s case strength and movement protection. This model, like all Reactor watches, features multiple O-ring seals and a watertight screw-down crown. If a Reactor watch owner forgets to screw in his watch’s crown, the watch will still remain water resistant to 100 meters.
That overall water resistance here, at 200 meters, is protecting a workhorse Miyota automatic movement, made visible through the clear K1 Hardened Ceramic Glass Crystal on the caseback. You’ll see the Reactor logo on the movement, but not much more than basic machined mainplate decoration, which at this price point should not surprise most collectors.
The watch’s dark carbon fiber dial serves as a three-dimensional palette for the red seconds hand and the highly luminous markers and 12, 6 and 9. Reactor prides itself on assuring strong, long-lasting lume on all its watches and has even developed its own proprietary Never Dark process that it uses on certain models (though not on this one). This watch’s lume was excellent. I was particularly impressed at the thick glowing frame around three sides of the date aperture.
Less impressive was the unidirectional rotating bezel, which needed some extra pressure to put into motion. Fortunately, the bezel’s knurling and ridged edge, and its four raised marker plates, offered plenty of traction for my fingers as I clicked the bezel. Fifteen black markers, punctuated by a bright luminous dot at the start, line one quarter of the bezel for a diver countdown purposes.
Unlike the testers in Reactor’s YouTube videos, I made no attempt to destroy my Neutron, but I suspect I would have found the task nearly impossible. The watch’s tough, machined exterior complements its casual, non-chrono dial. This Neutron Automatic is a masculine bracelet model that will meet any challenge presented by an active sportsman. The watch will certainly retain its rugged good looks and automatic functioning, though I suspect Reactor will make no claims the same would hold true for the wearer. Price: $750
The post On the Wrist: Reactor Neutron Automatic appeared first on iW International Watch Magazine.