While the new Air-King might be more radical than it first appears, the strange new destro GMT-Master II actually makes perfect sense.

When a new watch comes out, I try to reserve judgment. First impressions are fine and good, and necessary to do what I do for a living – and, hey, once you’ve held a watch in your own two hands you can go nuts with your opinions – but I don’t love how everyone is either in camp it’s amazing or camp it’s lame before they even see the thing in person.

I did finally come to a conclusion by the time I left the Rolex conference room, and I’ll share it here, but first I’m going to walk you through how I arrived at a verdict

So I tried to avoid the partisan approach when I first encountered the most talked-about new release at Watches and Wonders, the green-and-black Rolex GMT-Master II ref. 126720VTNR, with the crown and date on the left-hand side.

When you read a trade show Hands-On story, you’re usually reading a finely distilled product. Rarely do we offer any insight as to what it’s like in the actual meetings where we spend time with watches. And sometimes the experience of interacting with the brand is just as fascinating as the product.

An appointment with Rolex to see their new watches is similar to that at any other brand, except for one thing: Every detail is buttoned-up. Trade shows are generally chaotic, but Rolex engineers all of the chaos out of the experience. You are seated at a long table. Given water, still or sparkling. And then walked through a formalized presentation about each new piece.

This is the most detailed breakdown on the internet

In my case, two Rolex representatives from the U.S. Public Relations and Marketing departments led the presentation, and one Swiss product designer from HQ was on-hand to answer any technical questions. Read more