Review: Norqain Freedom 60 Chronograph

Have you heard of Norqain? No, not the new over the counter pain relief medication. The watch brand. I hadn’t up to a year or so ago, and nobody had prior to 2018 when it was founded by a Swiss gent by the name of Ben Küffer. Küffer has deep roots in the watch industry: his father and grandfather both worked for and/or owned private label brands, and he himself was employed by Breitling prior to the founding of Norqain.

Küffer has been adept at leveraging his position in the industry, and the management and board of Norqain wield some fairly impressive horological clout. The crown jewel is no doubt the recent addition of the legendary Jean-Claude Biver to the board, a move that is a marketing smash-hit and certainly can’t do any harm to the design and brand direction.

Norqain seems to mean business about becoming a real player in Swiss watches. In addition to a board of industry vets, it leapt headfirst into the market with offerings priced in the $2,000-$4,000 range, taking on such stalwarts as Oris and Tudor for its direct competition. I find it intriguing and somewhat admirable that it appears to be skipping the typical microbrand playing field and going big early on. I think if any brand has a chance at success in such an endeavor, Norqain does.

Norqain’s focus is sports watches, and its marketing material suggests its watches should be worn by people going on adventures. The brand generously sent me the new 40mm version of its Freedom 60 Chronograph with a gray dial, and while I’m too cautious to take a loaner watch on an adventure, I was able to spend some time with it and collect some thoughts.

The Case

The Norqain Freedom 60 is housed in a 40mm case, about average size as sports watches go, I’d say, as tastes and the market trend down from the supersize-me days of the 2000s and 2010s. It wears appropriately for its size. I don’t feel it wears particularly small or large; its thickness prevents it from being terribly svelte, but on the other hand it doesn’t feel like a skyscraper on the wrist either.

Case and lug geometry are crucial to the wearing experience. The Freedom 60 is fairly straightforward as this goes. The mid-case is straight sided and generally unremarkable. The bezel is a good size for the watch and gives the case some angled relief at the top. The lugs, decently down-swept and squared off at the ends, are fairly conventional and pleasant. A polished chamfer exists on the outer edge of each lug, widest at the edge where the lug is squared off and tapering at each end of the lug. To me this is a really great feature: it gives the lugs a soft angularity that complements the edges of the bezel and prevents the appearance from being boringly slabby. Nicely done.

I said the mid-case was unremarkable, and it is, except for a small screw-attached nameplate on the 9:00 side. On my review model this is embossed with the brand name, but you can have this engraved with anything you like. As a fickle watch enthusiast whose collection is a revolving door, I’ve never had the guts to get a watch engraved, but with this approach, the engraved plate can be replaced with the branded one at any time.

With deep enough pockets (I’ve no idea how much this service costs) and a certain sense of reckless abandon, you could even turn this into a day-of-the-week complication with a plate for every day or use it to remind yourself of after-work errands. A wrist-borne reminder that “IT’S JUST A WATCH” may help prevent an overwrought opinion or two from making their way online. All I’m saying is there’s real potential here for not just a chronograph, but also a difficult to use and therefore uncompromisingly Swiss take on the smartwatch.

The case finishing, all of it very sharply and evenly executed, varies between brushed and polished. The general effect is one of high polish- certainly not one I have a problem with.

The crystal provides plenty of distortion of the outer edge of the dial, and in my experience, makes the printed tachymeter scale virtually unreadable. I’m sure there’s a market segment that likes the look of a distorted scale better than a readable one but it’s not my preference. If the high crystal is purely for aesthetics and not for practical reasons (better clearance for the handset, for instance) I would prefer a flat crystal on this watch. In addition to better legibility, you could shave at least two millimeters off the total height of the watch, which would bring it down to really remarkably trim proportions for an automatic chronograph.

The Dial

I like almost everything about the dial of the Norqain Freedom 60. It’s a nice sunburst gray that plays well with the white subdials. The printing is razor sharp and the indices are immaculately polished. I actually got a loupe out to look at this dial and was rewarded with very nearly flawless construction and finishing anywhere I looked. The lume plots are small, as is the fill in the handset, but are beautifully even and a nice off-white, creamy color.

The date at 4:30 might bother some people, but it’s pretty low stakes to me and the black date wheel blends in with the gray dial at least better than a white one. My only gripe is the logo; I really don’t like the thin, highly polished and rounded lettering. It’s very difficult to see and photograph (petty, I know) and it seems you can only ever see a little bit of it at a time. To me it kind of messes up the aesthetics of the dial. Something stark white—matching the subdials, perhaps—would look pretty great instead.

From a legibility standpoint the Freedom 60 Chronograph is not that great. The handset is thin and highly polished—not the most legible choice for a sunburst gray dial. On the other hand, for most watches, I’m more concerned about aesthetics than legibility, and aesthetically the handset does fine with its vintage-y look.

The Rest

This watch runs an ETA automatic chronograph movement that’s visible via the sapphire display back. There’s a nicely finished custom rotor, and the frosted background for the caseback text is a nice look. Norqain calls this the NN18 movement, a weird affectation of some brands wishing to convey the impression of a manufacture caliber. An ETA chronograph movement is nothing to be ashamed of. For myself, I wish they’d just call a spade a spade.

Norqain sent me the Freedom 60 on a very unusual strap. It’s called the Nortide Freedom, and it’s created in collaboration with the #tide company. #tide collects ocean-bound plastic waste, processes it, and sells it as newly usable granules, or a spun yarn. The top part of the Nortide strap is constructed of this yarn to create essentially a polyester top layer. It has an interesting look and feel that kind of resembles canvas. The underside is smooth vegan leather, made entirely of apple skins (seriously). It doesn’t feel quite like leather but is pleasant to the touch and fine on the wrist. Bless the vegans, they will try to make leather out of anything. Altogether, the strap is ok: I’m not blown away by it, but it’s unique, interesting, and will doubtless break in and become more comfortable over time.

I do like the buckle on the strap, which is nicely branded, with brushed and polished surfaces, and appears to be made specially for Norqain. I tried the Freedom 60 on a few other straps, and I was surprised how much I liked it on a simple gray NATO strap from Crown & Buckle. On a polished Staib mesh bracelet it looked and wore very handsomely as well.

The Freedom 60 is an excellent watch. There’s a thoughtfulness to its design that is readily apparent, and the construction is nigh-impeccable. It wears like it should, looks like it ought to, and is an enjoyable and rewarding thing to have on the wrist. Would I make any changes to it if I could? I’d really love if they could shave a couple millimeter off the thickness in any possible way. Of course, you can’t reasonably expect the same slimness out of an automatic chronograph as you can any other watch, but when a chrono does manage to be a little slimmer than the rest, it really makes it stand out. That said, my bailiwick is vintage and lower-cost watches, so my suggestions carry less weight if they carry any at all. If you’re a fan of the brand and the aesthetic, you will not be disappointed with the Norqain Freedom 60 chronograph.

You can learn more and order directly from the Norqain website.