IWC Portuguese Chronograph Classic 3904-04 Review

Team,

The watch that I’m reviewing today is the kind of watch that I didn’t knew about until it was presented to me at the IWC Boutique and it was a rare case (for me) of “love on the first sign”.

The Portuguese Chronograph Classic 3904 was introduced at the SIHH in 2013 and it just went under the radar because that year was some sort of the “Year of the Ingenieur” and until today it only appears on the second page of the Portuguese section of the IWC web site.

The watch was presented to me with two dial options (in SS): white/silver and ardoise and I got hooked on the ardoise, despite the fact that the silver dialed is also very attractive.

The two options with a gorgeous Santoni (A Italian shoemaker that makes great straps for IWC) crocodile black straps with a deployment buckle.

The IWC was acquired on the IWC Boutique here. Amazing service. I plan to do a post “Visiting the IWC Boutique” to explain more.





Back to the Classic, let’s go for the details.

Case

The SS case is new for a Portuguese line and it remembers somehow the IWC pilot watches.

With a Germanic look (on the amazing Germanic engineering sense) the case is a classic “form follows function” design philosophy. The lugs are perfectly proportioned and the bezel size helps to reduce the subjective size of the case that measures 42.5mm.





Crown and pushers

The crown follows the same proportions of the case, meaning that is a little bigger than the one that we find on the Portuguese Chronograph 3714.

The pushers are bigger and when we activate the chronograph functions they respond with a firm and assured “click”. Wonderful.





Dial

I choose the “ardoise” dialed one because it’s just fabulous. I’m normally a black or white for dials but this one just got me.

The applied silver numerals are very balanced (no 6 and 12 “cutted”). The date background blends with the dial. Just amazing.





Hands

The also silver hands are very legible and the chronograph hour and minute accumulator shares a single sub dial.

The other sub dial shows the running seconds.





Movement

The movement of the Portuguese Classic is a major departure from the Valjoux 7750 based movement to an in-house IWC chronograph caliber (89361).

The IWC 89000 family is used by some of latest important watches going from the Perpetual Calendars (Ingenieur and Spitfire Perpetual) and now as the 89361 inside the Portuguese Chronograph Classic.

This family of movements were designed and manufactured completely by IWC in Schaffhausen

The 89361 is implemented as a integrated column wheel chronograph, with fly back and it carries an interesting single sub dial for the hour and minute accumulation.

The movement uses an enhanced self-winding system, an evolution of the classic Pellaton system, and has 68 hours of power reserve.




(Picture from iwc.com site)

Strap

The Portuguese Classic comes with a marvelous Santoni made strap. I used to complain about IWC straps but with this one IWC made my day.

My watch was delivered with a deployment buckle that few days later I replaced by a pin buckle using another Santoni strap.





Feeling

I was tempted to say that it fells great on my wrist but this do not explain the how great is the presence of this watch on my wrist.

Not bulky but with a size that matches perfectly even my meager wrist.





One month after

One good thing that I learned wearing this watch is that it does not call for attention, meaning that it goes well on a business and sporty settings and for most of time it goes unnoticed.

This “under the radar” fits very well my lifestyle and gives to a personal and private sensation that is impossible to describe in words.





Accuracy

I’m very obsessed with accuracy on my mechanical watches (Yes, I know that they cannot be 100% accurate) and this Portuguese Classic delivers. It deviates around +3 seconds/day (one week of measurement).

Very good by my book and it should improve after I finish the "break in" period (two months or more).

Manufacturer Information

•    Reference IW390404
•    Case Material stainless steel
•    Bracelet/Strap black alligator leather
•    Dial Color ardoise
•    Jewels 38
•    Calibre 89361

•    Mechanical chronograph movement
•    Self-winding
•    68-hour power reserve when fully wound
•    Date display
•    Stopwatch function with hours, minutes and seconds
•    Hour and minute counters combined in a totalizer at 12 o’clock
•    Flyback function
•    Small hacking seconds
•    Sapphire glass, arched edge, antireflective coating on both sides
•    See-through sapphire-glass back
•    Water-resistant 3 bar
•    Case height 14.5 mm
•    Diameter 42 mm
•    Alligator leather strap by Santoni


Conclusion

I believe that IWC just made an outstanding watch that can be very well positioned on the upper league of the chronographs.

For sure the Portuguese Chronograph Classic is a keeper and I will do another short review when it completes one year on my wrist.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Nilo

This message has been edited by nilomis on 2014-02-19 03:39:02 This message has been edited by nilomis on 2014-02-19 03:39:28