Richard Mille RM 35-01 Rafael Nadal NTPT Carbon Watch Hands-On

Richard Mille (Richard Mille) released another model in the new Rafael Nadal (Rafael Nadal) watches in 2014 RM 35-01. As early as 2010, Richard Mille placed the tourbillon timepiece on the wrist of the Spanish tennis champion, which not only shocked the watchmaking industry, but also the world. Not only did Nadal wear a limited edition RM027 watch to win the trophy, but he also lost a bit on the way.

The reason why the original RM027 watch is so special is its weight. I forgot the precise record it set (many records come and go), but I am pretty sure it is the lightest mechanical watch or tourbillon mechanical watch ever made because it uses a peculiar lithium alloy case material. The idea is that it is light enough not to hinder Nadal’s game, and durable enough to withstand the game. From a marketing perspective, this is genius.

A few years later, Richard Mille (Richard Mille) decided to continue to release the Nadal legend, launching a follow-up model of the RM 27-01 series watch with 27 colors. The RM 27-01 is larger and more interesting than the original watch, but it is actually 1 gram lighter and only 19 grams. It also uses a unique tension cable system to hold the tourbillon movement in place, making it more shock-resistant. The limited edition of RM 27-01 makes the original RM027 sound cheap. Now, this trend has changed in 2014.

Richard Mille’s latest product shocked me by the price. Of course, Richard Mille (Richard Mille) watches will always be at the “exclusive frontier.” Therefore, the biggest mechanical difference between the 2014 RM 35-01 Rafael Nadal and the previous series models is the lack of a tourbillon. Can a watch really be made into a “Nadal” watch without a tourbillon? In fact, Richard Mille made it clear that most athlete watch replicas should have a tourbillon movement. Although the brand’s tourbillon is indeed the most “Mille”, I think some of the brand’s non-tourbillon movements are the best.

Although the Calibre RMUL3 movement inside the RM 35-01 is visually very satisfying, it is relatively simple and only provides time with hours, minutes and seconds. It is manually wound and has a power reserve of approximately 55 hours. Most of the movement is made of titanium bridges, and its operating frequency is 4 Hz (28,800 bph). Again, this is Richard Mille’s more basic movement, but still has many of the visual technical styles people expect from the brand.

The RM 35-01 is not focused on movement innovation, but is part of some new watches in 2014 that showcase the new materials used by Richard Mille for the case. They call it NTPT carbon, and we made our debut here at the end of 2013. “NTPT” stands for the company that produced it; this is North Thin Ply Technology, which is actually located in Switzerland. The material is a specially layered carbon composite material, technically a high-tech laminate. It uses many layers and has been used for a range of industrial and sports purposes, such as the America’s Cup regatta. If produced in the correct way, it happens to have a unique quality that looks like Damascus steel.

Damascus steel is a layered metal. After acid treatment (especially), it shows various layers. It is said to have a “wood grain” style texture. Damascus steel is used in certain watches, such as Gustavsson and Jogren (watches produced by Gosafsson & Sjogren (Gos)), and is often favored by collectors because of its visual style. Now Richard Mille has his own “Damascus” material with an interesting appearance of NTPT carbon fiber, in this case black. I feel that this material can be almost any color, although I cannot confirm this.

So how does NTPT Carbon look on the case? It’s really cool. I don’t know if I personally would consider using it for best fake watches related to tennis players, but the texture of this material complements the overall appearance of the watch and strap. Although the background color is black, the case has a series of slightly shiny gray, almost looks like a futuristic camouflage. It doesn’t look fancy, and unlike some exotic polymers used by Richard Mille in other timepieces, NTPT carbon does have very high-quality materials.

By the way, the case material should be very strong and durable. There is no doubt that in the case of extreme vibration, the watch case can well resist various forms of abuse, and at the same time the mechanical movement inside the watch case will become a variety of damaged spare parts. So how bright is the whole watch? For a series of very light series, Richard Mille (Richard Mille) did not provide the overall weight of the case. Although they have stated that the total weight of the RMUL3 movement is very low, only 4 grams.

Like last year’s RM 27-01 watch, RM 35-01 will use Velrco’s fabric strap. Such a strap is difficult to pull down in a high-end manner, but for cool sports watches like this, I think it is feasible. To be honest, compared to other watches with tourbillon, I have more confidence in the durability of this watch. Logically speaking, a simple three-handed manual winding movement requires more effort than the discerning tourbillon. If you are a person who likes to call Richard Mille timepieces everyday wear, then RM 35-01 Rafael Nadal is definitely not a bad choice, its comfortable design, easy to bridge red rubber crown, clear and easy to read dial and durable Features.