As human beings we grow up being told not to judge a book by its cover, a person by its clothes, an event by its mass-communicated messaging. Many things are not what they appear to be in this world and we must be on constant alert. The potential danger when dealing with deceiving people is that we might find ourselves out of a good job, our savings, or our safety. If we indeed trust a book’s cover without reading the first chapter, we might be learning about things we shouldn’t. And if we naively believe what the masses say we might find ourselves stuck on the wrong side of history. All of this is to say that we’re quick to judge people, events, and objects without really knowing them or understanding what they’re all about. In our niche world of horology this means we could either buy into the luxurious watch gospel and spend more than we should on a watch which falls short on being good let alone exceptional, or we could glance over a seemingly meh watch whilst it is in fact a rather special one. 

In the review of the Unimatic Modello Quattro UT4-GMT we learned that the Italian brand is more than it appears to be and that many people get it wrong. If you listen to the noise you will believe that Unimatic makes watches which are too big for most people, too expensive for what they offer, and too plain to be interesting to any discerning enthusiast. In my opinion, all of this is bullshit and I think (know) so because I have spent a lot of time with the UT4-GMT and I liked it so much that I felt compelled to review another model from Unimatic: the Modello Cinque UT5-GO which is part of the limited edition Alpine Alps collection which comes in two colors, a time-only model and a dive watch. Akin to the UT4-GMT, the UT5-GO is as robust as they come, as singular as they can be, and offer excellent value as well as a fun and different horological experience. I’ve come to appreciate Unimatic’s contained aesthetics, legible dials, and muscular cases which are much easier to wear than most people think. 

Specifications

A lot of what we’re about to go over will feel familiar if you read the review of the UT4-GMT because it and the UT5-GO are built from the same horological cloth, so to speak. Both show how much Unimatic can flex its engineering muscle because it offers more value and specifications than most other brands do in the same price category, including the fact that the Italian brand claims to “make” (I assume manufacture some of the parts, assemble the watches, and quality control) them in Italy whilst most other micro and independent brands which sell watches in this same price bracket cannot claim to do any of these things. So the price in question is $700 USD which should indicate, in my humble experience, that the UT5-GO comes with a pretty sweet set of specifications given the fact that the UT4-GMT, which retails for $655 USD, was built like The Beast (a.ka. the United States Presidential State Car) and thus we can expect no less from the Modello Cinquo. Spoiler alert: you won’t be disappointed one bit. 

When looking at the UT5-GO one thing jumps out immediately: the wart-shaped* blocks of lume that make up the hour markers which glow stupidly bright green at the dimmest of light and which do so too under a bright blue sky. These blocks are made of something called UNILIGHT C1 which I suppose are three-dimensional blocks of C1 SuperLuminova molded for or by Unimatic which stand a few millimeters proud of the dial and indeed glow intensely. They are combined with generous applications of C1 lume on the hour and minute hands as well as the tip of the seconds hand, so that you can indeed easily see the time when bolting down an Alpine slope in the darkest hour of winter. I have seen watches with good lume in my five-year career thus far but the UT5-GO comes with exceptionally bright, long-lasting, and instant-charging lume and I rejoice in this first spec. The lumed dial is easy to glance at thanks to a slightly domed 2.2mm thick piece of sapphire which is endowed with effective inner anti-reflective coating. 

*I mean this with love. 

Below the luminous dial (yes it’s that good) ticks a Seiko VH31A sweep-seconds quartz caliber which comes with a stated accuracy of ±15 seconds per month (better than the ±20 monthly deviation we often see on Seiko quartz movements) and a battery life of ±2 years. I do appreciate the four-ticks per-second beat rate of the VH series of calibers as it gives the impression that we’re looking at a 3Hz mechanical machine even though the VH31A is more accurate, more resistant to shocks, and impervious to magnetism. But the UT5-GO wouldn’t be a Unimatic should it not be for the brand’s proprietary TPU 360 anti-shock movement protection system which fully envelops the VH31A and frames the dial (hence the bit of orange around the latter.) This combined with a massive 8mm screw-down crown and screw-down case-back, the UT5-GO of course comes with 300 meters of water resistance which is more than we all need and which again shows how over spec’ed Unimatic watches are. That’s excellent for $700 USD I say. 

The Modello Cinque UT5-GO is therefore as robust as the Modello Quattro UT4-GMT is for about the same price, however, the former is smaller and more nimble than the latter. The finely sand-blasted case measures 36mm in diameter, 43.7mm lug-to-lug, 11.6mm thick, and comes with a 22mm lug width because, heck, that’s Unimatic. This means that the UT5-GO wears really well on my 6.50”/16.5cm wrist on account of its dimensions and its lightweight format (63g) thanks to the quartz caliber, as those machines are notoriously lightweight and compact. Moreover, the Italian brand ships the UT5-GO on a Fumo strap equipped with quick-release spring-bars (Fumo is a smooth pigmented Nubuk-style leather) which is lightweight though particularly thick here (3mm on average but 3.7m at its thickest at the lugs) which matches Unimatic’s bold look of opting for a 22mm lug width on a 36mm diameter case. I believe these are the little details which give people the erroneous impression that Unimatic watches are enormous. 

Design

I was swayed by the design of the Modello Cinque UT5-GO because it offers a unique take on the everyday sports watch and because it is a beautiful hot mess of a contrast. On the one hand we have the smaller but muscular case which comes with a pronounced angular profile and a narrow body which makes the dial appear larger than it actually is. This visual effect is created by the combination of the 22mm lug width which pushes the lugs close to the edges of the case flanks and the narrow fixed bezel shaped like a tall metal washer. The bezel is indeed thin and is flanked by two chamfers, one on top and one at the bottom, the latter could also be, alternatively, an undercut which separates the bezel from the mid-case. Where we would normally find a sort of plateau above the lugs we find nothing, because the latter are pushed to the exterior of the case and are thin as well, and because they turn down at a sharp angle to make the 43.7mm short lug-to-lug distance. So the case is short and thin, but the lugs are wide and the crown overly massive. 

All of this contrasts strongly with the dial. On the one hand, the latter has a classic and timeless design on account of the three hands and classically laid out hour markers which are reminiscent of what we see on many dive watches (I recommend this article from our friends at The Calibrated Wrist to learn more about this genre of timepieces) which again shouldn’t make sense here. Horizontal batons at the three, six, and nine, an inverted triangle at the twelve, and circular elements everywhere else, which are highly legible because they protrude out from the dial and are delineated by thin gray lines. So the “classic” element of the UT5-GO already morphed into the other way to look at its dial—the sporty one— on account of the UNILIGHT blocks of lume of course but also the handset: “phantom ladder style hour and minute hands” as Unimatic puts it, or multipartite (reinforced) pencil-style hands which received a fully brushed treatment, a thin seconds hand equipped with a reverse lollipop element (for its counter-balance) and a lumed tip. 

Indeed, a beautiful mess of things which however work extremely well together. 

The Heart of the Matter

What we just described is exactly what makes Unimatic watches so unique and so misunderstood by the majority of the horological community. Because there is the over-engineered technical side of the UT5-GO—300 meters of water resistance, some of the best lume on the market, a proprietary movement shock-absorbing mount—and its singular aesthetic—a traditional diver’s dial paired with a fixed bezel case and complemented by tall lume blocks—which, in theory, shouldn’t make sense combined together but which do make a hell lot of it when experiencing the watch in the metal. It was the UT4-GMT robust construction and comprehensive spec list which prompted me to want to review the UT5-GO which, on paper, appeared quite strange to be honest. But I had a taste for the strange blend of Unimatic and I wanted more, and now that I have worn and analyzed the Modello Cinque under all angles and square microns, I am as smitten by it as I was by the GMT. Unimatic is indeed very good at the bizarre and the UT5-GO is indeed a beast in disguise. 

Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, the limited edition Alpine Alps collection comes in four models—two time-only ones and two divers in either this ice blue configuration or deep blue Alpine Sky variant—each limited to 300 units marked on the case-back. The time-only version like the UT5-GO retail for $700 USD whilst the divers will set you back $780 USD. Any of the four options is excellent but I was particularly drawn to the UT5-GO on account of its color scheme. As Unimatic puts it: is was inspired by the striking contrast between the vivid blue of the alpine sky and the pure white of glacier snow. I can see the latter part and it would make even more sense should I live or visit the Italian Alps on a regular basis, but who cares, it’s an excellent sporty and everyday watch which offers, as all Unimatic’s seems to do, excellent value and a singular character. 

Thanks for reading.