I had to go on an overseas work trip so gave myself an excuse to buy a GMT watch. As I don’t think I’ll be getting my Rolex Pepsi anytime soon, I decided to have a look at the relatively new Seiko 5 GMTs. I really wanted to try on the Seiko GMT SSK001 (black dial) and SSK003 (blue dial with blue and black bezel) but the boutique only had the black dial and the orange dial versions available.

The boutique offered a good 20% discount and so I decided to get the black dial version in the end. So after having it on my wrist for a week during my work trip, this is my summary of my new acquisition.

The Seiko GMT SSK001 is a fantastic watch. It does its job as a GMT very well. Even though this is not a True GMT but a Caller GMT instead, for me, working in the office most of the time, this did the job well.

The jubilee style bracelet feels good and is comfortable. The bezel with hardlex glass insert makes the watch look more expensive than it actually is. The bezel does not click as it is a friction bezel. The friction is good so the bezel does not move accidentally most of the time.

The Seiko GMT SSK001 bezel is half black and half silver to differentiate between day and night. Legibility on the dial is excellent especially for the GMT hand as it stands out in red. Adjusting the GMT hand as well as the hour and minute hand is simple enough. Pull the crown out in the first position and you can adjust the GMT hand and date wheel by turning the crown clockwise and anticlockwise respectively. The second position is to adjust the hour and minute hand.

On the Seiko GMT SSK001 there is no screw down crown and it doesn’t affect me one bit. There are Seiko dive watches with screw down crowns so you may want to have a look at those if you are intending to swim / dive with your watch.

The watch does not come with sapphire crystals but has the hardlex glass on both front and back of the watch. I have not had any issues with hardlex before so that’s fine for me. I think it would have definitely been more pricey if it did have sapphire crystal.

My only ask would be for Seiko to add an on the fly micro adjustment for the bracelet for the times when my wrist would swell or shrink due to the weather. Overall, I am happy that I purchased this watch and it will definitely have loads of wrist time for me.