Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille is well known for his elite fan base (including Rafael Nadal and Jay-Z) as for highly engineered, exorbitantly priced watches. Its latest stunner is 2022 RM-01UP Ferrari, which is just 1.75mm thick — a little more than two credit cards — made history when it relegated this summer as the thinnest mechanical watch ever made. Limited to 150 pieces and said to be priced at $1.9 million, the RM-01UP Ferrari trumps a series of previous contenders for the title, from the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept 2020 (2.0mm thick, $440,000). la) until this year BULGARI Octo Finissimo Ultra (1.8mm thick, $450,000). As impressive as these products are, however, they all have two things in common: limited quantities and sky-high prices. Good news? Casio Digital A700W-1ACF almost as thin as those cups and costing just $34, putting a razor-thin watch within reach of anyone.
The race towards thinner and thinner watches has heated up in recent years, but it has been going strong for more than a century, starting in 1903 when Edmond Jaeger (co-founder of the watch brand Swiss luxury Jaeger-LeCoultre) invented the Caliber 145, the thinnest watch movement the world has ever seen. Like athletes and yacht owners, watchmakers are competitive people and they love nothing more than to do something better — even in a short time better than competitors. Following the launch of the Caliber 145, the industry’s brightest minds immediately began to dream of new designs for increasingly slimmer movements and movements, and they haven’t stopped since. Some 120 years later, Richard Mille’s RM-01UP Ferrari is leading the way, but, watchmakers whoever they are, a new contender is inescapable.
With a 6mm-thick square case, the humble Casio A700W-1ACF might not be on the same level as Richard Milles and Piagets in the world (making an ultra-thin mechanical watch is much more complicated than thinning a watch). digital lake one) but it’s still noticeable. In a sea of chunky G-Shock Mudmasters and burly Pro-Treks, the equivalent of sturdy mountaineering boots, have something to say about the A700W-1ACF’s comfort, refinement, and easy wearability. And while the world’s thinnest mechanical watches tend to just tell the time, the Casio A700W-1ACF is packed with features, from a 1/100 second chronograph to a perpetual calendar and, of course, lights. LED background. Good things will come slender packages.
