2023 was the year of the GMT for me, and in my search to find a good travel gmt I found this from reputable microbrand Boldr based in Singapore. I ended up not keeping it mainly due to it’s size but I’ll attempt to go into more details of this watch in this review.

Specifications

• Diameter 44mm

• Lug to lug 52mm

• Thickness 12.5mm

• Lug Width 22mm

• Stainless steel case

• Ceramic bi-directional bezel

• Water Resistance 300m

• Screw down crown

• Sapphire Crystal

• Weight 196g

• Sapphire dial

• See through caseback

• Miyota 9075 movement

Brand

Boldr is a Singaporean microbrand that was started by founder Leon Leong in 2015. Leon was himself a watch enthusiast who wanted to create good quality adventurous watches. Their first watch was funded through kickstarter and it unfortunately did not go well. However, they refunded all their investors, persevered and are now well known in the enthusiast community for making good quality affordable watches geared towards more outdoor types, much like RZE and Zelos two other Singaporean microbrands.

Boldr have a line of very wearable titanium field watches under their Venture line as well as other field and diver watches such as this piece from their Odyssey line. All of Boldr’s watches are sold in hard wearing interesting cases rather than the standard watch box and this one came in a briefcase type case.

Positive Points

The quality of this piece is top notch. My experience with Boldr has shown that their quality control is some of the best in their price range, and this Odyssey gmt is no exception to this. The case, while larger than I’m comfortable with (more on that later) has been very well made and has a substantial weight and heft to it, which, may be too much for some but I liked it and it felt right for the look of the watch. The bezel moved with a pleasing clicking motion and I could not find any misalignment.

The dial is very legible with distinctive applied indices and a sapphire dial that gives it a pleasing sense of depth. Because of the outer 24hr ring this watch easily allows the wearer to tell the time in three timezones, and the lume is very good, which again seems to be a standard thing with Boldr watches.

Negative Issues

Okay starting with the most obvious issue, this watch is huge. With a 44mm diameter and a lug to lug of 52mm this watch really is too big for my average 17.8cm /7inch wrist. As well as being too large for me the watch is also very uncomfortable on. The sharp angles of the watch dig into your arm, wrist and hand, making this watch more uncomfortable than other larger watches I’ve had such as my Mido Multifort Chronograph , which has similar dimensions but is much more comfortable on than this Boldr.

The interesting shape that is also a positive of this watch also leads to one of its negatives. The bracelet on this watch is both heavy and uncomfortable, but the watch has an almost integrated bracelet design making changing to a more comfortable strap difficult at best to switch to. Meaning this watch’s weight remains large at over 190g.

Movement

This watch utilises the well known Miyota 9075 true/traveller gmt movement developed by the Citizen group. This watch has 24 jewels and boasts a power reserve of 42hrs and a beat rate of 28800bph. As stated previously this movement is a true/traveler movement where the hour hand can move independently meaning travelers can set the hour to the local time while the fourth gmt hand points to the home time. As someone who doesn’t travel often I prefer a caller gmt movement such as the one in my Raymond Weil Freelancer GMT Worldtimer where the gmt hand is the one that can be moved independently. These ‘caller’ gmt movements are more suited to me as I might want to keep track of someone in a different time zone, and true gmts often do not allow you to set the date independently, which I believe is one reason why some watches that utilize this movement do not bother having a date window such as with the Nezumi Aviera. Despite all this the true gmt complication remains the more popular one of the two gmt complications.

Conclusion

This watch is a very interesting looking piece. The quality control and craftsmanship that has gone into making this watch can’t be overstated for a watch at this price point. However, I do believe that this striking design has meant that this watch misses out on comfort in a large way. It might be that those with a larger than average wrist size will have no problem with this watch, for those of us who do not have larger wrists will find this watch uncomfortable on.

For this reason this watch was not a keeper for me, but I am definitely interested in trying out other timepieces from Boldr, and those who have a larger wrist size might well find this an interesting proposition.