I’ve seen early feedback on photos of the Navitimer 8 ranging from “boring” to “refreshing,” with someone writing on Instagram: “it looks like it should say ’Hamilton’ on the dial”. It was meant as a criticism, but there is some truth that, at first glance, it certainly isn’t as distinctive as the Breitlings we’re used to. As I mentioned at the top, the departure from the busy-dialed Navitimers of the past, can seem jarring. But let’s not forget that Breitling all but invented the modern wrist chronograph, with patents on the independent push-piece, and secondary reset push-piece, and the aesthetics of the Navitimer 8 are closely tied to those early aviation instruments, so there is early precedent for this simpler appearance. If I have one quibble with the B01 version of the Navitimer 8 Chrono, it's the date window placement, which I feel upsets the symmetry and otherwise simplicity of the dial and requires a cocked head to read. A date window at 6:00, as see on the three-hand Automatic version of this watch, would have been cleaner.