MVMT Minimal Sport Deep Dive Limited Edition Review

MVMT is a company out of LA that aspires to be a lifestyle brand as much as a watch brand, with youth-targeted advertising and accessory offerings such as hats and eyeglasses. Their watches range under $100 to over $300 depending on the model, quartz vs. automatic, and so on. So given the low cost of the watches, and a range of fashion products that might be more expected from Armani or Guess, are their watches any good? To find out, I purchased and wore the Minimal Sport Automatic ($350, but unfortunately, now sold out). Read on to find out whether these watches can hold their own among affordable watch offerings, or get lost as just another faux-lux fashion accessory along with your sunglasses and high end phone case.

First, the basics. This watch aspires to be a dive watch, with a stated 20 ATM / 200 meter water resistance. It is an automatic watch featuring a Miyota 821a movement with a 42 hour power reserve and a date function. The Miyota movement is common in watches at this price point, and is by all accounts functional and dependable. The case back is open and both front and back are made using sapphire glass, and the hands are coated with blue Super-LumiNova for low-light conditions. The case size is large, at 45mm, and features a rotating bezel, screw-down crown, and stainless steel strap.

So how does it hit the eyes? Well, to its designers' credit, this is a good-looking watch. It doesn’t immediately draw to mind a Rolex Submariner or some other classic, like so many other dive watches do. It has its own style and character. The company claims that it was inspired by bio-luminescent ocean life, and with the dark watch face and pale blue luminescent markers, that’s a credible claim. The gunmetal gray color of the watch and the strap are quite striking, and to me, unusual. The machined edges look sharp, and I like the open case back, because why shouldn’t you see the automatic machinery that you are paying a little extra for? In keeping with the ocean-going themes here, the designers have included some attractive jellyfish etchings on the case back that I found to be a nice touch as well.

Although this is a good-looking watch, there is one oddity worth mentioning, namely that it has an odd horizontal line in the middle of the watch face that you can clearly see in the photos. At first I though was a defect in my watch. However, it is clearly present even in the marketing photos of this watch. I tried to think of it as something that might have been intentional, part of the style, and maybe it is just a design feature. But I couldn’t justify it that way. It just looks like some tolerance or part of the manufacturing process was a little off. You have to squint to see it, but it’s there.

That’s how it looks—but how does it feel? To start with, make no mistake: this is a large, heavy watch. I like an expansive watch with wrist presence, as they say. And this watch has that. When you wear it, it’s a commitment. For me, though, between the heavy case and the stainless steel band, it may be too heavy. This might not normally be an issue, but I found the band to be, well, somewhat suffocating on the wrist. In order to alleviate that, I adjusted the strap to a fit that might have been a bit too loose, but at least avoided a sweaty wrist emergency. But with the loose fit, the watch slid around on my wrist, and in the end I couldn’t really find a happy medium between that and a tighter fit that was hot and uncomfortable.

The watch has some other drawbacks, too. One is that in no way would this watch work as a dive watch. The reason is that the hands are empty rectangles, with the bio-luminescence only visible around the faint rectangular edges. I can’t see it in on a street at night—and it would certainly not be visible in any low-light dive conditions. The hands would have to be solid with significantly more surface area for this to work. So while I like the water resistance specs, and the overall ocean theme here, a functional dive watch it is not, and I think the watch has a bit more style than substance in this respect.

The other issue is the build quality. While the exterior machining looked nice and presented a solid, confident appearance, the glass face did not line up well with the bezel, leading to a sharp feel around the glass edge. You could chip a fingernail dragging it across the watch face to the edge. I also wish that date were a little bigger. But maybe that’s just me, hoping not to have to cross my eyes to see the date when I need to. I should also note that this is a loud and kinetic watch. Give your wrist a shake and you will hear that rotor spin, and you will feel it too.

So what’s the verdict here? Overall, I give this watch points for style. It doesn’t look like every other watch. The designers have something unique on their hands here, and MVMT has a lot of other watches that, at least in their marketing materials, look great and have their own style. So this seems in keeping with the brand. But the weight of this watch, and the sweaty discomfort of the band when tightened, meant that this just can’t be a daily wearer for me, even if I break it out from time to time to enjoy having this striking watch making its presence known on my wrist and in the world.