This is the second watch from MMI that I’ve had the chance to get hands-on experience with. The last was the Nor-Light, an interesting foray by the brand into a dressier, glitzier style. While I enjoyed a lot about the Nor-Light, the Turret GMT is both more of my speed and the brand’s. It is firmly within MMI’s tool-watch wheelhouse and is my favorite watch they’ve produced thus far. Why the effusive praise? In short, the Turret GMT has the most resolved, cohesive details of MMI’s offerings — no easy task considering the sheer amount of information conveyed by the watch’s dial and bezel.
Starting with the dial, you have MMI’s signature roulette-table date display (with lumed indicator!), applied lume-filled hour markers with polished metal surrounds, a finely-printed white minutes track, just inboard of which you’ll find similarly fine-printed odd numerals for the 24-hour scale. There’s refreshingly minimal branding, with just MMI’s graphic logo above the pinion and two lines of text — one reads “GMT” in red, and the second denotes the water resistance level — below the pinion. I wouldn’t object to the removal of the “GMT” text, as the bold orange-lined GMT hand effectively announces that function, but it isn’t bothersome in its current guise.
Turning to the hands, you have appropriately chunky and polished obelisk hour and minute hands, each of which is segmented by a polished metal band. The GMT hand is a modern arrow design that is lume-filled, bordered in orange, and made more prominent as a result of the thin arrow shaft that the triangle projects from. The one critique I have of the dial is the second hand, which is a bit too thin to be easily seen, at least in this silver-on-black configuration that is notorious for making watch hands magically disappear. The tip is painted red, which does help improve legibility, but a slightly thicker hand, or a second hand painted entirely in red, would be a legibility improvement. This is likely not to be an issue with the orange or blue dials, as the silver polished hand will contrast more dramatically.
This is a dive-GMT layout, in which the second time zone is read from the dial rather than the bezel. While this means you can only track two time zones, the format allows you to do so while retaining the useful function of an elapsed-time bezel. Though I avoid factionalism on the topic, I do prefer this layout for a GMT watch. There is an issue with the bezel, though, at least when wearing the watch on the supplied bracelet. It looks great, and the thin ceramic ring does a great job of being legible itself, aided by the fully-lumed timing scale, while also affording the dial the necessary surface area for all its elements to be clearly visible. That said, it is very difficult to rotate the bezel when the watch is mounted to the fitted bracelet. The issue isn’t with the spring tension, which makes for nice action, but with the lack of grip available. The coin edge grooves are a bit too shallow, and more detrimentally, the bezel flank is too short to make for a functional grip surface at 12 and 6. Gripping the bezel on the flanks of the watch is not much better. When wearing the watch on a fabric strap, the edge is much more grippable at the 12 and 6 positions. Fortunately, if you share my preference for watches on fabric straps, MMI has made the changeover easy by including quick-release spring bars on the bracelet.
I love the broad-shouldered yet overall compact shape of this case, achieved through flat surface angularity and the 40mm/22mm case-to-lug width ratio. There’s a bit of Seiko Samurai in the case flanks and the angular, seamed turndown of the lugs, but there is more inspiration than derivation in the overall design. The finishing and transitions aren’t going to challenge the sharpness of, say, Christopher Ward, but it is perfectly well done for the price point. For instance, there are some polished chamfers along the inner and outer edges atop the lugs that do a nice job of adding detail without undermining the purposeful brutish design of the case.
Flip the watch over, and you’ll find a cleanly executed and appreciatively restrained caseback design. The typical specs orbit the perimeter of the screw-in caseback, done in an appropriately modern font. Within this text ring, MMI’s logo is engraved deep enough for it to appear in relief but not so deep as to create sharp edges or any other texture that would be noticeable when wearing the watch. As part of the brand’s continued evolution, I would love to see an improvement in the quality of brushing on the case – the deeper, heavier brushing on the case back would look excellent on Turret’s case’s flanks, and along the top of the lugs.
While the total package (watch and bracelet) is not lightweight, the case’s shape and the flexibility of the H-link bracelet make it wear surprisingly comfortably. The bracelet’s H-link pattern is a comfortable style and the fully-brushed links befit the robust intentions for this watch. The Turret GMT wore even more unobtrusively once I put it on a fabric single-pass strap. For my money, this is how I’d wear the Turret GMT, as it makes the watch even more comfortable, and the contrast of the thin strap to the blockier case really accentuates the latter’s blocky, orthogonal design.
My only minor gripe about the bracelet pertains to the clasp, which is a tried and true twin-trigger, flip-lock design. It works just fine and has five micro-adjustment holes, but the micro-adjustment is of the old-school spring bar design. From experience, tool-less micro-adjustable clasps are far less a superfluous affectation than the notion that a mechanical GMT is the best way to track multiple time zones while traveling (see: smartphone). On a caller style GMT such as the Turret, it is more forgivable, as the function is optimal not for the traveler but for those they have left behind. It is a relatively minor quibble, but this market segment has largely adopted one of the many varieties of tool-less micro-adjust clasps, and it would make MMI even more competitive as a brand if they did so as well.
Mostly minor critiques considered, the MMI Turret GMT is an enjoyable watch that offers a lot of value. Beyond just this model, I love brands in this range, the type of value-for-dollar outfits that deliver good designs and quality construction, all for a relatively attainable price. With the Turret GMT, you get a 300M automatic GMT with a unique design for right around $330 at early bird pricing and about $470 at regular price. MMI seems to have figured out a solid niche, spreading their signature roulette-table complications across a handful of well-made tool watches. The Turret GMT may be the pinnacle of this design language, and while it could always be further refined, as is it effectively rounds out MMI’s core offering. MMI could tinker with details across their lineup, and comfortably occupy the entry-level microbrand market, but I think there’s potential for more from the brand.
In my review of the Nor-Light, I mentioned my curiosity about where MMI goes moving forward. Victor has a good eye for design, and I’d love to see what his and MMI’s next-level leap would deliver. Not necessarily a leap in price, though some of that would be understandable, but a leap into designs that move beyond dials centered on the roulette date complication. None of that, though, takes away from the great package the Turret GMT offers. It is a compliment to the watch, and its designer, that it leaves me curiously enthusiastic for more.
If you’re interested in getting an MMI Turret GMT for yourself, head over to the site quickly, as one variant is already sold out: https://www.mmiwatches.com/collections/turret-300m-dive-watch.
