About this watch

Reference 126710BLRO is the Pepsi, and this one comes on the Oyster bracelet rather than the Jubilee — which changes the watch more than people expect. Brand new, 2022, and the plainer, more deliberate of the two ways Rolex fits this bezel. The colours are not decoration. A GMT bezel is graduated over twenty-four hours, so half of it is daylight and half of it is night, and splitting the insert red over blue lets you see at a glance whether the hand pointing at your other time zone is sitting in someone's working day or the middle of their sleep. Read the 24-hour hand against the red and you can call; against the blue and you probably should not. That is the whole design argument, and it is why the two-tone bezel outlived every single-colour version Rolex tried. Oyster or Jubilee is the real decision here. The flat three-link Oyster is broader, more brushed and considerably more sober; the Jubilee's five links catch light constantly and pull the watch towards dress. On the red and blue bezel — the loudest Rolex makes without leaving steel — the Oyster is the setting that keeps it a tool. Calibre 3285, self-winding, approximately 70 hours of power reserve, waterproof to 100 metres.…