Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional With White Lacquer Dial | A Week On The Wrist

Back in November of last year, Daniel Craig sent Speedmaster fans into a little bit of a frenzy when he showed up at the Planet Omega exhibition in New York wearing a brand new Speedmaster. Now, nobody had ever seen this watch before and people wondered, was it a new limited edition? After all, Omega has been known to crank out limited editions in the past. Then, in March, we finally got our answer. This is the new Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch with a white lacquer dial. Essentially, this watch, the reference 310.30.42.50.04.001, is a white dial version of the current Sapphire Sandwich Speedmaster, which means it has a sapphire crystal at the front and a sapphire case back allowing you to see the movement. Now, back in 2021, Omega released their current generation of the Speedmaster with a caliber 3861 master chronometer movement. The watch measures 42 millimeters by 13.18 millimeters thick with a 47.5 millimeter lug-to-lug. The bezel is made out of steel with an aluminum insert that features the dot over 90 on the tachymeter scale. The biggest change was a much-improved bracelet, which tapers from 20 millimeters to 15 millimeters and has a quick extension that gives you anywhere from a third to two-thirds of an extra link. Three years later and we have the first regular production Speedmaster Professional with a white dial and it's a white lacquer dial. What makes it different? Basically, just that. It's got steps like the current generation of Black Dial Speedmaster with circular graining in the sub-dials. You also get punches of red like the text for Speedmaster or the tip of the chronograph hand. The rest of the text is in black and the hands and the hour markers match as well, but they're actually mirror polished with a black PVD coating and in some light they just look silver. I would say the white dial doesn't necessarily wear bigger but maybe a little bit bolder on the wrist. It's certainly a statement. I think a lot of people are so used to the look of a black dial or a darker dial on their wrist, but with the white dial it just pops more. It's also something that I think might be more of a summary option, something I've discussed with some friends as I've been reviewing this watch, but I think no matter what you can wear it any time of the year and it'll certainly catch your attention every time you look down at it. As a complete package, it's pretty stunning. The text on the dial seems to float in midair when you look at it from different angles, but the fact that it's actually a white lacquer dial means that it's pretty hard to produce. And despite all the challenges in production, this new white lacquer Speedmaster only costs $100 more than the current Sapphire Sandwich with a black dial. The total cost $8,100. Now at $8,100 it's a tough price point for any watch on the market, but when you compare it to everything else that you could get for the money, you have things like at about $11,000 the Zenith Chronomaster Sport, which has a similar design quality and sportiness to it. Tudor has recently released a few chronographs that are a couple thousand dollars cheaper than the Speedmaster, but to me there's really only one main competitor to the new white dial Speedmaster, and that's the Rolex Daytona. Granted it's not the only option on the market, but Rolex and Omega have been side-by-side as market competitors for a long time, and there's a few similarities aesthetically. You have the black bezels on both, you have touches of red text, but the Daytona costs $7,000 more, and it's got a wait list that extends five years or even longer for some customers. Speedmasters, on the other hand, have always kind of been the opposite. They're the watch that, if you were interested in something cool with a lot of history, you could walk into pretty much any dealer and buy one on the spot. But with the white dial, that's changed. I talked to an AD recently who told me that the wait lists now are starting to extend one and a half to two years out. To be fair, a two-year wait isn't nearly as long as a Daytona, but it is something that most Speedmaster buyers are probably not used to. When you're making changes to an icon like the Speedmaster, you have to tread very, very carefully. It's something that Omega has done pretty well over the years, but that also can be a double-edged sword. When you've got a watch that has looked the same for decades, it can be kind of hard to tell one generation from another unless you look very carefully. But with the new white dial Speedmaster, that's not a problem anymore. I honestly hadn't tried on a Speedmaster in a few years just because they almost always seem the same, and I didn't know which one was for me. This one is so substantially different. It's fun. It's interesting. Speedmaster collectors themselves are people that are obsessed with details, and some of them might want to keep watches that are an interesting part of history or an interesting part of a lineage. But when you're coming to the Speedmaster for the first time, the number one thing to think about is, how does the watch make you feel? So, after living with this watch for about a week now, I have a couple of thoughts, but the bigger thing is actually a question. If the old adage goes that every watch collector should have a Speedmaster in their collection, does that mean that you should have a black dial as your first watch, or is a white dial okay as well? Honestly, I don't think there's such a thing as a bad first Speedmaster. Your first Speedmaster doesn't necessarily need to look like the one that went to the moon. As a gut check, I also asked a close friend of mine who's a big collector of Speedmasters. He told me that surprisingly, he didn't even own a single modern Speedmaster from this current generation. That is, until yesterday, when he and his father both picked up white dial Speedmasters as a little bit of a celebration and a token of their collection, you couldn't ask for a better endorsement. At the end of the day, I think this might be my favorite watch of the year so far. I think it's good proof that we probably should worry a little bit less about what other people think about us and the watches that we choose, and more about what moves you. It also made me more confident in the fact that, yeah, I think I kind of do want this new Speedmaster.