Geckota K-01 Pilot Style 44mm Watch
I decided to dip my toe into the Micro Brand world with something which on paper looked to be not only a bargain, but from hearing what other people were saying about the company, WatchGecko a good place to start. The Geckota K-01 44mm Pilot was (and still is) on sale at the time reduced from £299 to £149 and came in three variants; Blue sunburst dial, Grey sunburst and Grey sunburst with vintage style lume. I went for the last option as I felt the vintage lume made the watch look less ‘stark’ but I have to say they all look rather good!
Delivery speed from Geckota was excellent with email updates when shipped and was on my wrist within a couple of days of purchase. Unpacking the delivery package you are provided with a well bubble wrapped pack securely holding a cardboard outer sleeve which houses a cardboard outer box which in turn houses an excellent quality wooden watch box – everything oozes quality!
Taking the watch out you instantly know this is going to have a lot of wrist presence, not only due to its 44mm diameter and large (9mm) screw-down crown, but for its super legible dial. I love the fact that this is a sterile dial (no logo or indeed any script at all). Turing the watch over in your hands the feeling of quality is again reinforced, the metal bracelet is a superb fit and finish, with solid end links and a butterfly clasp – links are held in place with push-pins and proved easy to size. The watch head itself has an excellent level of finish with a flat bevelled edge sapphire crystal, the bevel mimicking the bevel on the polished bezel. The main body of the watch is very finely brushed with just a fine polished chamfer showing on the transition from the top of the case to the sides. The screw-down case back has a textured centre with a polished raised image of a four engine aircraft – not sure what it represents but again it is nicely done as is the whole case back overall.
On the wrist it certainly as stated has some presence and it should be noted that on the Geckota website, they list the watch as having a lug-to-lug dimension of 49mm, this is in fact the distance between the centres of the strap spring bars and the overall length is about 54mm. Other main specs are; 22mm lug width, just a smidge over 14mm thick and a stated water resistance of 100 Mtrs. The movement inside the case is the ubiquitous Seiko NH35 automatic and mine is keeping time to within a plus a few seconds a day. However this movement does have a date wheel, but as there is no date window on the watch face, when the crown is unscrewed and pulled out there is a ‘ghost’ first position and you have to pull the crown out to the second position to adjust the time. I’m OK with this as I’d sooner not have a date window on a watch, I always feel they tend to spoil the symmetry of the watch face and personally I dislike having to remember how many days in each month so I then have to reset the watch when there isn’t 31 – perhaps not too bad if you only have one watch but currently I have 10 with a ‘date complication’ so I find month ends are a bit of a chore, yes my watches with date complications are in winders as I don’t want to continually have to set the date or in some instance day & date.
So everything is wonderful with this watch? Well just a couple of issues that do take the edge of the overall package. The first being the lume, which in my case is significantly brighter on the on the Arabic and baton hour markers than on the hands. Now it is still very bright, but the hands don’t outlast the hour markers over time and that is just plain silly! I don’t know if this is just something that is limited to the vintage lume model or present across the whole range. The other thing is the second sweep hand which does look a bit out of place being bright white compared to the other hands and hour markers, here I think a little bit of colour matching wouldn’t have gone amiss. This issue obviously won’t be there with the other lume options.
Finally let’s talk about that wonderful bracelet, which although really nice, being equipped with a butterfly clasp I found to be either too loose or too tight. Now I am a fan of butterfly clasps but generally only on leather straps where I can quickly adjust the strap throughout the day if necessary as my wrist swells or shrinks. So I removed the bracelet and currently wear the watch with one of WatchGecko’s (Geckota) leather pilot straps I bought in their sale, which if I’m honest I feel actually suits the watch head better. So if the fitted bracelet had a divers type scissor clasp with some micro adjustment, so it could be fine-tuned, then it would probably still be in use as it is it is packed away in the presentation box.
Delivery speed from Geckota was excellent with email updates when shipped and was on my wrist within a couple of days of purchase. Unpacking the delivery package you are provided with a well bubble wrapped pack securely holding a cardboard outer sleeve which houses a cardboard outer box which in turn houses an excellent quality wooden watch box – everything oozes quality!
Taking the watch out you instantly know this is going to have a lot of wrist presence, not only due to its 44mm diameter and large (9mm) screw-down crown, but for its super legible dial. I love the fact that this is a sterile dial (no logo or indeed any script at all). Turing the watch over in your hands the feeling of quality is again reinforced, the metal bracelet is a superb fit and finish, with solid end links and a butterfly clasp – links are held in place with push-pins and proved easy to size. The watch head itself has an excellent level of finish with a flat bevelled edge sapphire crystal, the bevel mimicking the bevel on the polished bezel. The main body of the watch is very finely brushed with just a fine polished chamfer showing on the transition from the top of the case to the sides. The screw-down case back has a textured centre with a polished raised image of a four engine aircraft – not sure what it represents but again it is nicely done as is the whole case back overall.
On the wrist it certainly as stated has some presence and it should be noted that on the Geckota website, they list the watch as having a lug-to-lug dimension of 49mm, this is in fact the distance between the centres of the strap spring bars and the overall length is about 54mm. Other main specs are; 22mm lug width, just a smidge over 14mm thick and a stated water resistance of 100 Mtrs. The movement inside the case is the ubiquitous Seiko NH35 automatic and mine is keeping time to within a plus a few seconds a day. However this movement does have a date wheel, but as there is no date window on the watch face, when the crown is unscrewed and pulled out there is a ‘ghost’ first position and you have to pull the crown out to the second position to adjust the time. I’m OK with this as I’d sooner not have a date window on a watch, I always feel they tend to spoil the symmetry of the watch face and personally I dislike having to remember how many days in each month so I then have to reset the watch when there isn’t 31 – perhaps not too bad if you only have one watch but currently I have 10 with a ‘date complication’ so I find month ends are a bit of a chore, yes my watches with date complications are in winders as I don’t want to continually have to set the date or in some instance day & date.
So everything is wonderful with this watch? Well just a couple of issues that do take the edge of the overall package. The first being the lume, which in my case is significantly brighter on the on the Arabic and baton hour markers than on the hands. Now it is still very bright, but the hands don’t outlast the hour markers over time and that is just plain silly! I don’t know if this is just something that is limited to the vintage lume model or present across the whole range. The other thing is the second sweep hand which does look a bit out of place being bright white compared to the other hands and hour markers, here I think a little bit of colour matching wouldn’t have gone amiss. This issue obviously won’t be there with the other lume options.
Finally let’s talk about that wonderful bracelet, which although really nice, being equipped with a butterfly clasp I found to be either too loose or too tight. Now I am a fan of butterfly clasps but generally only on leather straps where I can quickly adjust the strap throughout the day if necessary as my wrist swells or shrinks. So I removed the bracelet and currently wear the watch with one of WatchGecko’s (Geckota) leather pilot straps I bought in their sale, which if I’m honest I feel actually suits the watch head better. So if the fitted bracelet had a divers type scissor clasp with some micro adjustment, so it could be fine-tuned, then it would probably still be in use as it is it is packed away in the presentation box.
All in all, this is a wonderful watch for the money and if you’re looking for a large pilot style watch, then I certainly urge you to visit the WatchGecko website and check out the Geckota K-01 at its current sale price and look over some of their other offerings as well, great selection to choose from. There are certainly two in my wish list that I'll hopefully be acquiring over the coming year.
More pictures of my K-01 can be found in the Watch Picture Gallery along with some of my other watches
UPDATE:
Image of wrist shot added as a few people have contacted me concerning it's overall size and there are no wrist shots of it on the WatchGecko / Geckota webpage - I still think this is stunning value at the current sale price. So below is a shot of it on my 7 1/4 inch (18.5cm) wrist, still one of my favourite watches.
Image of wrist shot added as a few people have contacted me concerning it's overall size and there are no wrist shots of it on the WatchGecko / Geckota webpage - I still think this is stunning value at the current sale price. So below is a shot of it on my 7 1/4 inch (18.5cm) wrist, still one of my favourite watches.
