It won’t be shocking to you to hear that I love tool watches. Although we no longer need watches we can choose to wear one to keep track of time or to emulate a certain aspect of our personality which has laid dormant for too long. I am obsessed with tool watches because of their purpose driven nature. Back when people needed them, tool watches had to be legible and robust. They were endowed with just enough of the good stuff to make them functional without being ostentatious. That’s how I like my watches and this is why I mostly wear tool watches. (On a side note, functional and sober is how I prefer all of my things to be.) 

So the question is: why make another tool watch in 2024? There is obviously no real need for it, however, one chooses to make or wear such a watch because he or she likes solid equipment, legible tools, and that is how one prefers to go about their daily life—simply and surely. So I was delighted when Draken offered me to check out their newest release called the Peregrine—named after the world’s fastest bird of prey. The watch is what I would classify as being in-between a pilot and a field watch, therefore it is legible and robust. All of what I ever wanted for Christmas, really. 

Specifications 

The Peregrine is not the first model from the brand I have in for review. A while back I examined the Tugela GMT which I gladly described as being “The GMT for Rambo, You, and I.” Indeed, the Tugela GMT is a robust piece of traveling equipment and now that I am handling a second model from the brand, I can already tell you that Draken is all about creating solid tool watches at a reasonable price. (More on that later.) First things first, I was surprised to read about the dimensions of the Peregrine as it looks smaller on the wrist that it should: 42mm in diameter, 49mm lug-to-lug, 12.9mm thick, and coming with a 22mm lug width. 42mm is a diameter that should be too large for me but it isn’t here. Although the Peregrine has imposing metrics on paper, it fits superbly on my 6.50”/16.5cm wrist. 

What I can already tell you helps in making the Peregrine wear so well is the fully brushed 316L stainless steel case and bracelet. In other words, nothing shines which does aid in endowing the Peregrine with a fly-under-the-radar profile. Moreover, the screw-down crown is located on the left side of the case to ensure it doesn’t dig into the wrist* (for those who wear their watches on the left wrist,) and coupled with a screw-down case-back, the Peregrine comes with an adventure-appropriate 100 meters of water resistance. The top crystal is a flat piece of sapphire complete with inner anti-reflective coating, and with drilled lugs, swapping the steel bracelet for a toolish rubber or fabric strap is an easy operation. 

*There is nothing more effective than a piece of metal digging into your skin to make a watch uncomfortable to wear. 

In terms of movement, Draken opted for a Miyota 9130 caliber that beats at 28,800 BPH (4Hz) and comes with 40 hours of power reserve. The thing that makes the 9130 stand out from the ultra popular 9015 and 9039 movements is the power reserve indicator located below the date aperture at the six. A power reserve on a tool watch is something I didn’t know I needed or wanted to have but now that it is here, I find it to be quite a neat feature. (And I also love it for the simple fact that it’s wonderfully and beautifully satisfying to see the tiny hand turn right when winding the movement.) Lastly, Draken didn’t go cheap on the lume; indeed, the application of C3 X1 SuperLuminova on the applied hour markers and hands is superb, and the application of BGW9 on the printed markers is balanced. 

Design

As we have already established, the Peregrine is a field-pilot or pilot-field watch. Large and fully brushed alpha hands point at painted Arabic numerals as well as applied and fully brushed rectangular lume plots. I love the juxtaposition of painted numerals and applied lume elements as it both makes the dial easy to read and interesting to look at. It also helps in distinguishing daytime timekeeping from nighttime light show, similar to what we saw on the Tornek-Rayville Type 7B “BlakJak.” What Draken did particularly well here is to display the Arabic numerals with a clean and rounded typeface that is perfectly proportioned to the dial and hands. All of this put together contributes to making the dial clean, legible, and well-balanced. 

Did you notice the discreet debossed circle in the middle of the dial? I believe this further contributes to the visual balance of the latter.  

In terms of striking the perfect balance between legibility and functionality, Draken also did an amazing job integrating the date aperture at the six o’clock (white printed numerals on a black date disc, not framed) and endowing the power reserve indicator with a small, lumed hand, and a power scale that range from low indicated by a red hash mark and full with by a lumed hash mark. (Draken also lumed the engraved brand logo on the crown.) And, it should be added, all Arabic numerals, as well as the pilot-style triangle at the 12, are lumed. So we find a legible and functional dial, located inside a fully brushed stainless steel case. In other words, the Draken Peregrine is, without the shadow of a doubt, a proper tool watch. 

Lastly, let’s turn our attention to the case one more time. It comes with a simple and bold appearance, where we find slightly curved case sides and long, massive lugs which emerge from the stainless steel apparatus at a straight angle. There are no chamfers which confer the Draken Peregrine a straightforward—no BS—character, something that is emphasized by the massive screw-down crown and the fully brushed, stepped fixed bezel. The fact that the sapphire crystal is flat further contributes to endowing the Peregrine with a utilitarian aspect. However, the brand did not allow any part of the case and dial to appear boring, as it is exemplified with the brand name engraved on the right side of the case. 

The Heart of the Matter

At the heart of the matter is the fact that Draken released a solid utilitarian timekeeping device which is both legible and well-made. All of that for the more-than-reasonable price of $509 USD (tax excluded) on the stainless steel bracelet or $467 USD on a sailcloth strap. My advice: go for the bracelet as it is a fine example of a three-link bracelet with screwed pins, female end-links (which we like because it helps make the bracelet drape around the wrist,) and a double-pusher clasp with a whopping five holes of micro-adjustments. No, I do not have any moans or niggles about the fact that the clasp doesn’t come with an on-the-fly micro-adjustment mechanism. We ought to stop obsessing over these types of specs. 

What is perhaps more at the heart of the matter is that Draken is the type of brand that follows its own path and does so well. While many micro and independent brands either try too hard to stand out from the crowd—by releasing pizza-themed or rare meteorite dials—or simply homage an iconic model, Draken found a way to revisit the popular genre of pilot and field watches by marrying the best visual and technical attributes of both types of watches together. And so Draken offers us the possibility to strap a clean, legible, and robust purpose-driven timekeeping device to our wrist for $500 USD. We don’t see many of these anymore and that is worth pointing out. 

Conclusion 

Before that I share my final thoughts on the Draken Peregrine, you should know that this collection comes in a total of four variants: a black “Version A” with Arabic numerals at the 3, 6, and 9; a black “Version B” showcased here with an almost complete stack of Arabic numerals; and two white variants, both in versions “A” and “B.” (I do love how the white dial with contrasting black numerals look.) At the time of writing this review (June 2024,) Draken is offering a 15% discount on all variants as it is currently taking pre-orders with an estimated shipping date of July of 2024. Just in time for your next summer adventure. 

As a self-proclaimed tool watch aficionado, I could write about them all day long until the end of my journalistic career. My philosophy is as follows: since I don’t need to wear a watch, I might as well wear what I like. For me, obviously, that would be a legible and solid tool watch. For you it could be a luxurious chronograph, a solar-powered field watch, or a white gold ultra thin dress watch. Whatever rocks your boat that is what you should go for everyday. So if you liked what you saw here today, I suggest taking a look at the full range of the Draken Peregrine here. 

Thanks for reading.