Longines Launch First HydroConquest GMT with New 24-Hour Display

Longines have quite quietly been creating some lovely watches for a while now with models like the Record Heritage, Master Small Seconds and my personal favourite the Spirit Zulu Time 39mm. I don’t think I’m alone in loving the GMT model because there has been a lot of attention on the Zulu and Longines have clearly noticed. I say so because they’ve now taken the L844 GMT calibre from the Zulu and put it into their best-selling collection, creating the Longines HydroConquest GMT.

I’m actually surprised that this is the first HydroConquest GMT they’ve ever produced – especially because the collection has been around since 2007 and Longines has been producing GMTs since 1925. Admittedly a GMT is not a natural partner for a dive watch because knowing what time it is in another time zone doesn’t help when you’re deep underwater. However, following the logic that you might be travelling around the world to visit certain dive spots and that GMTs don’t really impact the legibility of the dial all that much, it’s not too much of a stretch for the imagination.

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Getting into the specifics of the watch, it’s a 41mm diameter model in stainless steel with a thickness of 12.9mm. It also features a redesigned caseback that combines the winged hour glass logo with a depiction of the world’s lines of longitude and latitude in reference to the GMT complication – similar but not identical to the symbol on their other GMT watches. On top of that, it has a new bezel as well with a ceramic insert providing extreme scratch resistance and preventing colour from fading.

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Speaking of colours, there are four to choose from: black, green, brown and blue. Each featuring matching bezels and sunray brushed finishing. Having a matte option in the future could be nice to reinforce the diving aesthetic a touch more, but as we’ve already discussed this is kind of a diving-travel hybrid and the sunray reflects that.

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However, perhaps the biggest redesign on the dial of the Longines HydroConquest GMT is the fact they’ve replaced the Arabic numerals at 12, 6 and 9 o’clock with triangle and circle markers while swapping the circular markers everywhere else for rectangles. Such a big change in the visual design language of a watch is pretty sure to garner some criticism from diehard fans. I’m not a huge fan of the circular markers at 6 and 9 myself, but maybe that’s because Rolex have conditioned me to believe the rectangular markers should go there with the circles between. Although I do think there’s a logic to the change.

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The new peripheral 24-hour scale with day/night indication takes up a lot of space previously occupied by the hour and minute track and as such the individual markings have had to be reduced in size. In case you’re not familiar with a GMT complication, the 24-hour scale pairs the fourth hand in the central hand stack to display the time in an additional time zone alongside the regular hour, minute and seconds hands for local time.

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Beneath the surface, the movement powering it all is the L844.5, a COSC chronometer certified calibre with automatic winding and a 72-hour power reserve. It also uses a silicon balance spring and non-magnetic components for solid magnetic field resistance, which is a nice quality of life enhancement for both diving and travel.

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Zooming back out to the bracelet and strap options and there have been some updates there too. The Longines HydroConquest GMT is presented on a redesigned H link steel bracelet with brushed finishing and equipped with their first micro-adjustment clasp. Micro-adjustments allow you to really perfect the fit of the bracelet as well as adapt to different circumstances such as wearing the watch on top of a wet suit. There are also rubber and NATO strap options available.