The Fourth Wheel, Issue 71

Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Chronograph review: tool watch cosplay or charming, comfortable contender?

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the newsletter that offers its warmest congratulations to everyone selected for the GPHG Jury. Maybe one day the powers that be will decide they need my particular set of skills, but I can wait. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. In the meantime, I am hard at work putting together plans for some improvements to this humble publication. It hopefully won’t be long before I have something to announce.

In other news, I broke my most expensive watch this week. It’s hardly a priceless Patek, but that’s still not a sentence any of us would enjoy writing. It’s covered by the warranty, but despite being a semi-serious dive watch with a brand new movement, it was no match for a 50cm fall onto my office carpet. Not hugely impressive. I await the service centre’s verdict…

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I spent a little time with the new Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Chronograph this week. Not long, but enough. If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that I described it as ‘the day I fell for the Polaris Chronograph’ so, spoiler alert, I do like the watch. However, that was an immediate, impulsive reaction which after the passing of a little more time, has been tempered by prolonged consideration. 

Let’s work from the outside in, starting with what made me go out of my way to see the watch in person to begin with: the colour scheme. I think it was high time the Polaris Chrono had a bit of a facelift; looking back at the details of the 2018 originals it is startling how quickly it has dated. You might prefer the simple, matte dials in blue or black but to my eye they are too plain for a watch costing £13,000¹. 

The cynical counter to that is that a little gradient finish - actually, a really pronounced, heavy gradient - is not a justification for the price tag either, and we’ll get to the matter of the bill in due course, but taking it purely at face value I liked what I saw. I feel that the shading and variation in texture provides some personality, some point of interest over which the eye can linger, that was lacking before. Coupled with the sandy textile strap, it gives the watch a real ‘Desert Storm’ persona. We’ve seen this idea before, with the full beige-out of IWC’s Mojave Desert pieces and Bremont’s MB Savanna, but I like the sand-coloured details paired with a stainless steel case. 

That case measures 42mm across and 13.4mm thick, as it has on the Polaris since 2018. The lugs are short, almost snubby, and come with a broad, polished bevelled edge running from case edge to spring bar. Across the case you’ll find a mixture of brushed and polished finishes [saying things like ‘the juxtaposition between brushed and polished case finishes qualifies you for a journalistic flick around the ear, these days] and enough little details - like the fine lines stencilled into the chronograph pushers or around the caseback - to make you ask: is this a watch made for an expedition across the Hindu Kush, or a piece of haute horlogerie that’s cosplaying as a tool watch?