Today we are gonna talk about not so known brand from Switzerland called MQT. Based in Bern, Switzerland MQT Horlogère Suisse focuses on creating watches using the best materials. Their goal is to offer you a high-quality watch for an affordable price. MQT has two meanings. It’s an abbreviation of Mousquetaires, the French for musketeer. The watch company was founded by three people (the three musketeers). MQT also stands for ‘mastering quality timepieces’ – for exquisite quality and distinctively designed watches made in Bern, Switzerland. I found their company interesting and some of you my readers suggested me to review their watches. So I reached out to them and they sent me one of their watches from Marble collection with a stainless steel bracelet.

The watch arrived in a very nice clamshell style box with MQT logo of the three musketeer swords. The bo feels very premium to me. I know that the box isn’t that important, but it is nice to have a nice unboxing experience! Inside you will find the watch and instructions manual. The first impressions were good, I was impressed by how light it is, and I liked that Marble dial a lot. I never had a watch with a dial like this for review and I wanted to check it out. The one thing that surprised me was that it is bigger than I thought, not in a bad way as I have a middle-sized wrist and it looks good on my hand I think.

So the case of the MQT is made of 316L stainless steel. The case is very well machined with nice and sharp lines. Everything lines up perfectly and I can’t see any flaws there. The case is finished in satin brushed and high-polish finishings which are done exceptionally good. The case shape is round with some beefy lugs slightly angled at the wrist. The diameter of the case is 43mm, the thickness is 10mm and from lug to lug it measures at 51mm. For a guy who has middle sized wrists and up, the watch is perfect, but for skinny guys, this watch is a no go. On my wrist, it looks almost too big, but it still works. But the one thing that surprised me is that it is pretty light for a 43mm watch with a stainless steel bracelet. I have some other quartz watches that are much smaller (39mm) and they weigh almost the same as this one. So it is a big watch, but it makes all that up in its weight thus making the daily wearing experience very comfortable. At the right side of the case at 3 o’clock you will find a push-pull crown which is deeply engraved with the MQT logo on top. The crown is very easy to operate and it has a decent grip to it. The solid screw in case back has MQT logo laser etched on it with some specifications. The water resistance is 5ATM which is more than enough for rain or some handwash, but nothing more. On top of the watch, you will find a flat sapphire crystal which is a nice addition in this price range, but the only problem is that it lacks AR coating as you can see from the photo it was a pain to photograph it as it reflects everything like crazy.

The dial on the watch is made from a real black marble which is also polished. The applied hour markers are polished and go together with the whole watch design. The MQT logo is also applied and is polished. The three musketeer swords are also applied on the dial. The hour and minute hands have lume on them which is pretty good. It shines for about 4-5 hours and thus making the watch legible also in low light conditions. The second’s hand is just a polished stick hand, nothing special. I wish that they actually made the seconds hand in the shape of the musketeer’s sword. At 6 o’clock we have the Swiss Made text printed. The dial is kept minimal, but as I’ve previously said that there is no AR coating on the crystal and due to the dial being polished an very reflective too it is pretty hard to read time as it catches reflections of the sky and everything very easy. But nonetheless it looks cool and if you don’t look closely you don’t notice the marble at all.

The movement in this watch is quartz, but not your regular one. This is the ETA E64.101 which runs at 32’768 Hz, has 8 jewels and has the PreciDrive which makes this watch super accurate to +-10s/Year. You just can’t beat that with any mechanical movement and you will never be late. The ETA quartz movements are one of the best ones in the market due to its high reliability, durability and ease to service it. The battery life on these is usually around 41 months.

This particular MQT model comes with a solid link bracelet option, but you will also find a leather strap options and a mesh bracelet option too. In my opinion, the one we have here in for a review is the best looking one from their whole collection! The bracelet is very nice with brushed outer links and half polished middle links with some details. The sides of the strap are polished. The bracelet has solid end links and all the links are solid too. The only thing is that to resize the bracelet you need to push out the pins and that sometimes is a really hard job to do by yourself and to not scratch the watch better take it to your local watchmaker. I wish they used the screws instead of the push pins, but I guess it would increase the price of it. The butterfly clasp is very well machined and it is hidden under the bracelet so it looks like an endless bracelet from one end to another, it is just more pleasant to the eye. The links where the butterfly clasp meets are signed with MQT logo. The clasp works very well and feels very secure! MQT ships them out with a pretty long bracelet so a big guy can wear it too and plus it’s nice that you have some spare links if you damage or scratch any.

Overall the watch is pretty good and is a big competitor in my opinion to Tissot as it has a similar vibe to those watches. The watch is very well made and machined, it has a sapphire crystal, very precise Swiss Made quartz movement from ETA and nice bracelet! The watch maybe isn’t for everybody as it is on the edge of being a fashion watch, but not really. If you are searching for something more unique that won’t be on so many wrists, then this is the watch to go with!

Price: 254€ @ mqtwatches.com