Welcome to our latest hands-on review, and man, do I have a fun one in store for you. Hanhart is a brand that sits very near and dear to my heart, seeing as the 415 ES Panda was the first watch I ever received for a hands-on review. Now, there have been months since I reviewed that stunning watch, and I have been trying to get another one in ever since, and I have finally been fortunate to receive another one to review.

I won’t go into the history of the brand, seeing as I have made a whole separate article talking about the history of the brand. I will link to that article here. But some cliff notes about the brand. Founded in 1882 in Diessenhofen, Switzerland, by Johann Adolf Hanhart. After the turn of the century, he moved them to Schwenningen in the Black Forrest of Germany. This is were Johanns son Willhelm would bring the brand a majority of their early success. Willhelm was a visionary and had a huge interest in chronographs.

The war was a tough time for the brand, and production was massively halted. In the 50s and 60s, the brand made military watches for the French army. In 1952, the Admiral chronograph, which is most likely the biggest influence on today’s chronographs from Hanhart, made its debut at Baselworld. In the quartz crisis, the brand made tons of quartz calibers, this time, it was not marked with as much pain as it did for most brands. Hanhart has been steadily sailing ever since.

First things first, this watch is gorgeous. As many know, I have a soft spot for well-sized chronographs, and, more previlantly white dials. This seems like a watch specially made for me. You have an extremely wearable and comfortable 39 mm case with a manual-wound Sellita SW-510, which is a very reliable caliber, which, due to being manual-wound rather than automatic, lends itself to the watch being just 13.6 mm in height, including the exceptionally domed crystal.

The accents in this watch flow so well together. The stark white dial contrasts the painted blue hands beutifully and the subtle black lettering brings the whole thing together. I had three strap options on mine. A classic steel bracelet with a microadjustment and screws in the links for added reliability and ease of adjustment. I had a black leather strap with white seams giving a very nice contrast to the watch face and case, the third is the same black strap but with an addition of a flight base, as I call it.

All this to say, Hanhart may be making the best mid-price chronographs on the market. Hanhart might also be the hottest watch brand on the market leading into Watches and Wonders, as the brand has not only released one hitter of a watch, but two, as they also recently released the 417 ES Desert Pilot chronograph, which has a beautiful beige dial, which, spoiler, I am trying to get for review. For the price of 2590 euros, I don’t think there are better chronographs out there, at least not to suit my requirements. A close one would be the Longines Spirit Flyback released last year, but this white dial blows it out of the water. For me, the watch gets a 10/10 rating and is a definite buy.

Thank you for the read, and a kind thanks to Hanhart for lending me this piece to review. I will leave a link to the product page here. I highly recommend checking the watch out for yourself and even picking one up. I promise you won’t be disappointed. If you have not gotten your fill of me yet, I kindly request you read more, as it does help out the website quite a lot. As always, until next time.