My most charitable view about the Ming 17.06 Monolith: It’s a minimalist masterpiece with attention to detail you won’t find on any other watch in this price range.

My most cynical view: It’s a boring, two-hand, time-only watch with a base level ETA movement.

At $1500 the 17.06 Monolith offers the full Ming design language in a simple, clean package.

For some, it may tend towards too simple, as this really is a bare bones, two-hand, time-only watch with nary a moving part to be seen on the front or back of the watch to let you know it’s alive. But alive it is thanks to the rock-solid, industry standard workhorse ETA 2824-2 beating under the solid caseback. While not a particularly inspired choice, this movement is both superbly reliable and serviceable.

Ming has even gone a step further by regulating it in five positions as well as modifying the keyless works to remove the phantom date setting position on the crown (since the movement has a calendar function but the watch does not).

The details are where this watch shines. It has one of the best crowns I’ve ever used; perfectly knurled and sized. It comes with a nice Ming branded buckle on the strap. The anti-reflective coating on the crystal is actually anti-reflective. The lugs have two different sets of holes; one for curved lug straps and one for straight lug straps so the curved can sit closer to the case (!). It’s wonderfully sized at 38mm. It has lume on every white surface on the dial.

It feels like a well made watch, but it doesn’t really look like one. People think it’s made of plastic, or maybe that it’s a Swatch. Overall, this is a watch that feels better in person than it looks in photos, but doesn’t strike me quite often enough when choosing my watch for the day.

If you want a minimalist watch with a standout design that could only come from Ming, this is the entry-level choice.