The new Quantra comprises three dial designs and six dial colours which share the same case and movement. I know my pick, but which one is right for you?
Horology enthusiast, Yook Hong began his journey by dabbling in the niche world of Seiko watch modification and it was this creative spirit that led him to establish ALCADUS in 2018 with the aim of designing premium yet accessible range of understated and elegant watches. The brand name is derived from the Latin word altus (high, deep, noble, profound) and cadence (beat, time, rhythm). The Quantra is the Malaysian brand’s fifth collection to date, and I for one am liking what I see. Read on to find out why I’m in love with one of them!
Overview of the ALCADUS Quantra
The Quantra is, to my eyes at least, ALCADUS’ most successful design to date, or should that be ‘designs’ plural?! After all, there’s a total of six variants within the Quantra collection split amongst three dial designs, all sharing the same case design and automatic movement.
The Type 01 is a sector dial design with a small seconds display at the nine o’clock, available in three colours, Silver (as reviewed here), Salmon, or Purple.
Type 02 features applied indices and comprises three dial colours; Sky Blue (my review watch), Anthracite, and Aventurine. The Sky Blue and Anthracite versions keep the sub-seconds at nine o’clock, but rather confusingly, the Aventurine dial does away with the small seconds display completely.
All six watches are available to purchase direct from the ALCADUS website and have a launch price of $635.00 (approx. £490), which increases to $749 (approx. £580) once the pre-order window closes. With plenty of choice, it’s easy to find something to love. The warranty is an impressive four years, which covers mechanical fault of the movement and a free watch case replacement for any damage from daily wear or accidents. You can’t say fairer than that!
The Case and Wearing Experience
The 36mm stainless steel case has a lug-to-lug measurement of 44mm, a thickness of 10.5mm and a weight of just 54 grams including the strap. This versatile unisex sizing will look great on a range of wrist sizes and has a vintage-esque appeal. From top-down the case looks elegant, but simple, basic even. However, like all good design, details reveal themselves when you change your viewpoint. Visually, the standout feature of the case is undoubtedly the CNC-machined recessed section of the mid-case which adds a touch of modernity and is visible only when viewed from the side. The case also has a lovely profile, with a continuous gentle arc and downturned lugs, helping the watch hug the wrist and adding to comfort.
The ALCADUS has another trick up its sleeve though and it’s one that isn’t even visible to the naked eye. Any guesses? Top marks to you if you said ‘hardness coating’! The Quantra has a scratch-resistant hardness coating rated to 800 HV, as well as an anti-fingerprint coating. Sadly, my prototypes watches didn’t have this coating, so you may see some scratches on the photos, but rest assured every production watch will be fully tooled up, ready to serve even the clumsiest of wearers. For once, door frames might not come off best!
The three-part case has a mix of polished and brushed elements at play. The fairly broad bezel is polished to its face and sides, something that would usually shout ‘scratch-magnet’ at me, but thanks to the HV rating, this will be much less of a concern. The mid-section is mostly satin-brushed, but the distinctive recessed centre section is bead-blasted, and a lovely touch is the generous polished and tapered chamfers along the lug shoulders. Between the lugs is vertically brushed. A box-shaped scratch-resistant sapphire crystal with rounded edge and flat top rises above the case and helps bring extra character to the Quantra. Five layers of anti-reflective coating are applied to the inner side of the crystal and this certainly helps enhance legibility. A simple 6mm polished push-pull crown is used, so water resistance is only 50m, not great, but perfectly adequate for a dress watch. The well-proportioned crown is etched with the brand’s logo, the action is positive and it’s smooth to wind. The screw-down caseback features a large sapphire crystal exhibition window which provides full view of the attractive movement beneath. Case finishing is generally very good, but I do feel like the slightly sharp edges on the case sides could have been refined a bit more in the later stages of finishing.
The Quanta comes with a high-quality strap in a colour of your choice, made from leather supplied by the legendary Tanneries Haas. The leather straps taper from 20mm down to 16mm and are cut, saddle-stitched and burnished by hand. Textured leather is used for the upper, whilst a smooth Zermatt leather is used for the rear to help provide comfort against the wrist. The lovely tang buckle is predominantly polished and bears the ALCADUS brand name which is embossed and set against a section of bead-blasting. The straps are comfortable and supple straight out of the box, but sadly, no bracelet option is offered, which could put some buyers off. I also think the leather straps would be even better if they had curved ends for a more seamless fit against the case.
The Quantra Type 01 Dial
The Type 01 draws inspiration from classic sector dials and features a design comprising printed Arabic numerals for the ‘even’ hours and simple line markers for the ‘odd’ hours.
The metallic silver hour ‘sector’ has a circularly brushed finish and sits between the outer railroad-style minute track printed in black and the white central dial, separated by a printed black circle. The long hour markers lead off from this central circle, with shorter lines leading the eye to the Arabic hour markers.
There is no date window, so the only thing to interrupt the symmetry is the sub-dial and the nine o’clock position which displays the seconds. The sub-dial has a lovely bevelled rim and a radial guilloche-engraved pattern. The slender pencil-style hands on my Silver dial watch are blued by electroplating. The same goes for the Salmon dial, whilst the Purple dial has gunmetal coated hands.
I love the contrast of the brushed silver sector against the smooth matt white finish of the central dial; the tonal and textural differences are just enough to create a unified yet contrasty look. Overall, it’s an elegant, well-balanced design that whilst classical somehow stills looks fresh.
The Quantra Type 02 Dial
I was lucky enough to be sent the Sky Blue Type 02, and what an absolute stunner it is! Although the sunburst dial is described by ALCADUS as Sky Blue, in person I’d describe it as being somewhere between sky blue and steely blue, and it’s the type of dial you can get lost in, to the point of distraction! Working from the outside in, the Type 02 features an outer railroad minute track printed in black over a white background. Applied baton-shaped indices are used for the hour markers, whilst a shorter single baton is used for the nine o’clock marker and a double baton is used for the 12 o’clock marker. The silver indices are all high-polished and faceted as are the elegant custom-made dauphine style hour and minute hands. Seconds are displayed via the recessed sub-dial placed at nine o’clock, which has a lovely, bevelled edge and a radial guilloche-engraved pattern to add visual interest and texture. A white printed railroad track with markers at ten second intervals help track the ticking seconds via the simple needle-style seconds hand. The only dial text is the brand name above the pinion at 12 o’clock.
To me, the dial is the best of both worlds. It’s well balanced, simple, and legible, but the gorgeous metallic sunburst dial and impeccable execution of the indices and hands brings the dial alive with lots of light play, so it never becomes boring to look at. Whilst obviously not reaching the lofty heights of Grand Seiko perfection (it’s about a tenth of the price after all), it sure gives out Grand Seiko vibes in its understated class, timeless style and overall level of finishing. If you hadn’t already guessed, I’m thoroughly impressed by the dial!
The TYPE 02 is also available with an Anthracite dial or as an Aventurine dial which does way with a seconds display completely.
ALCADUS Quantra – The Movement
The Quantra uses a Hangzhou 5015A micro-rotor automatic movement, which is viewable through the sapphire caseback. The choice of movement helps keep the price of the watch low, the case slim and the view through the sapphire casebook attractive! With the bi-directional rotor set within the framework of the bridges and plates, you can ogle the watch’s inner workings unobstructed to your heart’s content. The 34-jewel movement is regulated in-house at ALCADUS to +/- 7 seconds and decoration includes blued screws, Geneva stripes and a custom ALCADUS rotor. The power reserve is 42-hours and you can hand wind the movement, but you can’t hack the seconds hand. The beat rate of 28,800 VPH / 4 Hz ensures a smooth sweep to the seconds hand.
Final Thoughts
When I first unboxed my pair of ALCADUS Quantras I was initially drawn to the Sector Dial, but it didn’t take long for the allure of the Sky Blue Type 02 to win me over with its refined look reminiscent of a Grand Seiko Elegance SBGW231. If you’re after a timeless dress watch with a hint of modernity I don’t think you’d go wrong with either one.
Is the Quantra perfect? Not quite. But the negatives are few, especially given the sub $500 launch price. The case finishing whilst good, could be improved in places and there is no bracelet option. The only other negatives though are entirely subjective. For example, despite the excellent quality, I’m not a fan of embossed pattern straps which tend to have a flat and uniform colour, so it’d be nice to see some other leather options offered that allow patina to develop, such as a pull-up leather or Shell Cordovan etc. Others might be put off by the Chinese movement, which doesn’t have the kudos of Swiss or Japanese movements. Other than that, the only other obstacle is that ALCADUS faces stiff competition from better-known brands, such as Baltic, offering similar products. However, after having said that, the ALCADUS has slightly better water resistance than the Baltic and benefits from a regulated movement. I think there is no right answer here as to which one is ‘better’ as differences are marginal, so the choice will probably come down to which style you prefer. Whilst I’ve yet to see the Baltic equivalent in the flesh, I’m pretty confident that my money would be spent on the ALCADUS as the Type 2 Sky Blue dial is just irresistible to me.
There is so much to love here and for a very reasonable price. The Quantra is a classy, understated and well-proportioned watch with enough details to set it apart. It offers an interesting movement which is regulated for better accuracy, beautiful case details, animpressive hardness coating and quality strap pairings. The whole package is for the most part extremely well executed and the dials in particular look sharp, precise and defined, providing great legibility. I love the well-judged dial colours and the fact you can chose between the more graphical Type 01 sector dial or more refined Type 02. Thanks to the versatile sizing, you could easily find an excuse to add both to your collection and share them between the other watch lovers in your household, or just double-wrist it! (we won’t tell anyone…promise).
Let us know which one is your favourite in the comments below!
