Brands do either one of two things: (1) they quickly move on from a collection they made to another one in order to create a fresh buzz; (2) they add new dial colors to an existing collection without changing anything about the design. In the former case, the brand doesn’t seem to invest in its own creations or could signal it didn’t really believe in what it created in the first place, or that its chasing new customers by proposing something radically different. (Which is sometimes justified of course when the previous collection was a dud.) In the latter case the brand appears lazy because it doesn’t alter the design of the watch but simply add new dial colors hoping that it could prolong people’s initial interest for the collection ad vitam æternam and translate into a few extra sales. But the addition of new colorways ad nauseam (feeling like quite the linguist today) devalues said collection and makes the brand indeed appear lazy. Damn, aren’t we being a little harsh today, are we? 

And where am I going with all of this eh? Good question. So between brands which jettison one collection for another and brands which overdo it with an existing collection, there are a few which do add new colors and alter things a little bit so that the new members of the family do not appear like lost second cousins at a family reunion but rather like the handsome brother or ravishing sister which just made a show-stopper-like entrance in the room. And that is what French brand Neotype has accomplished (I believe) by adding two new versions to its LM02 Chronograph collection with a Panda and Reverse Panda variants, complementing the six other siblings already in the house. The first four ultra utilitarian versions were then complemented by a green and blue dial versions, slowly transitioning from hardcore tool watches to something in-between the utilitarian and elegant, to finally ending up today with the dressier variants which are no less well equipped to still be the ultimate tool watch. 

Specifications 

At the risk of sounding redundant akin to grandpa retelling the same youth stories everyday, we ought to study the healthy (spoiler alert!) spec list of the LM02 before delving back into the design of this collection and of the Panda variant more specifically. Through this collection Neotype intended to create the ultimate and affordable tool watch which we can use for all of our realistic and unrealistic adventures, so fixing the leaky garden hose to solo-ascending Mount Everest, providing the necessary and essential functionality for such timekeeping device as seen by the brand co-founders, Pierre-Thomas and Jean-Baptiste. The LM02 is a mecaquartz chronograph powered by a Seiko VK64 caliber which comes with a stated monthly accuracy of ±20 seconds and three years of battery life, and which is composed of a 24-hour indicator at the three o’clock and 60-minute totalizer at the nine. So we can time anything and everything and more thanks to the tachymeter scale printed on the bezel if you of course know how to use it. 

The latter is now polished versus being brushed on previous versions, which adds 20% of elegance to this otherwise ultra purpose-driven tool-watch. All bezel markings are precisely CNC-machined and filled with SuperLuminova Old Radium and so in generous quantities (I mean look at the lume shot below,) which is quite extraordinary to see for the asking price of 525€ excluding VAT (or $604 USD) alone. Moving inward we find a double-domed sapphire crystal 3.5mm thick, making it one of the thickest pieces of sapphire I’ve ever seen, complemented by five layers of inner anti-reflective coating which do work—double-domed sapphire crystals are generally a pain in the neck to photograph because they reflect back any micron of light with nuclear intensity even when inner AR-coating is applied. But here Neotype opted for a crystal that is inner-domed and therefore which has an external flat profile and chamfered edges, being therefore clean and clear and with minimal distortions at its edges. 

Believe me (or not) but procuring such a type of crystal ain’t cheap nor easy, but makes sense given Neotype’s goal of making the ultimate tool watch. Which is why the brand also opted for a screw-down case-back which is more than 2mm thick to make it more resistant and better suited to endow the LM02 Panda with 200 meters of water resistance. To that same effect, Neotype opted once again for a large screw-down crown 8mm in diameter, so that it is easy to grab and operate, protected by stubby crown-guards, and for screw-down chronograph pushers both for the water resistance thingie and to make them safer to use in dusty, wet, windy, and muddy environments. Uncrewing/screwing the pushers does not require to lift or push down on them as we do with a crown, which makes them easy and safe to use. And to complement the healthy spec list: a lumed sandwich dial, a sturdy bespoke FKM rubber strap or an olive green nylon strap so that you have options based on what you’re up to and where. 

Again, that’s a lot of good specifications for 525€/$604 USD. Oh, dimensions: 39mm in diameter, 48.50mm lug-to-lug, 13.80mm thick (15.1mm with crystal), and a 22mm lug width.

Design

As we saw, Neotype complemented the new colorway with a polished ceramic bezel which is logical: Panda-style chronographs have always looked more elegant and everyday than traditional (read: monochromatic) chronographs which look more utilitarian. (Thinking about the Omega Moonwatch Professional of course.) So to elevate the original design of the LM02 collection the brand chose to pair the new dial color with a polished ceramic bezel and I have to say they work really well together: the bezel looks like one found on luxury time-measuring instruments which retail in the thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars, whilst the Panda dial configuration makes us reminisce of the racing chronographs cool Hollywood actors wore on screen and in the paddocks. Panda dials are as timeless as they come and eternally vintage looking, and so the combination of the two here is superb and worth taking another close look at the LM02 collection. Which is the point I indirectly made in the introduction. 

The general dial layout of the Neotype LM02 Panda however hasn’t changed much from the first members of the family: two sub-registers which received a minimalist design treatment so that they blend in and are easy to read—a balance which couldn’t have been easy to accomplish—; large pencil-style hour and minute hands; perforated hour markers in the shape of small circles and long batons, giving us a clear view of the lumed disc underneath; and branding/information printed in the brand’s modern typeface bringing home once more the contemporary nature of its designs. But another small change was made: the tiny hands on the sub-registers are painted yellow whilst the markings inside the registers were printed in white for additional contrast, while they were of the same color on the previous version we looked at. And the case retains its glorious muscular and angular profile I gushed over in my previous review: so to know more about it then read the darn thing. (Love you!)  

Though: the finishing is much better which is a nice touch. 

The Heart of the Matter

And so brands either do one of three things: either they move on at the speed of light from one collection to another to say Hey look at us, we reinvent ourselves everyday! or add new colorways without changing anything about the design (and manufacturing for that matter) in the least inspired bout of creativity; or they rework the design with small tweaks, improving upon the overall quality of the watch, so that the new colorways make more sense and transform a watch into another. Here from ultra-utilitarian tool watches as it was the case with the first four versions of the Neotype LM02—black dials with stainless steel or PVD-coated cases—to a bit less toolish ones—with the green and blue dial variants—to frankly much more elegant and sporty versions with the Panda—stainless steel case + creamy dial—and Reverse Panda (I haven’t talked about)—with a black dial + gold-PVD case. And all of this without drastically changing the price: $578 USD for the version I reviewed last year to $604 USD for the Panda version which is rare and cool. 

Conclusion

At the risk once again of sounding like a senile old person I will say this: today there are too many brands making too many tool watches and so each brand must do something remarkably well and/or different in order to stand out from the crowd. I feel that, from the get-go, Neotype has done a very good job coming up with its own design language which the brand paired with excellent specifications and affordable price tags, which is true whether looking at its first collection, the LM01, or the first version of the LM02. The LM02 Panda is therefore a logical continuation of the brand’s foray into singular looking, ultra-spec’ed tool watches, each having the potential of being an ultimate tool watch. So I invite you to check out the brand’s website to know more about this new release. 

Thanks for reading.