Up close: Zenith Defy El Primero 21 Carbon

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Introduced at Baselworld 2019, we get our hands on with the Zenith Defy El Primero 21 Carbon for a week and used it as our daily beater This is our hands-on review of the watch

Zenith first introduced the Defy El Primero 21 about 3 years ago, with the lightning style chronograph seconds hand which makes one complete revolution every second.

The original Defy El Primero 21 was available titanium and ceramicised aluminium in an openworked dial, with a solid closed dial version in titanium New for 2019 is this version in a full carbon case.

Zenith Defy El Primero 21 Carbon

The case, dial and hands

The case is 44mm in diameter and is made completely of carbon The case shape is the classic Defy shape, with angular facets on a tonneau case and a round bezel.

Living with the watch, we find the sapphire glass does its utmost best to attract and retain fingerprints, though all told, it is rather easy to clean – a quick swipe with a clean handkerchief or micro fibre cloth makes it gleaming and clean in an instant

The carbon case is inherently unique in that it has layout patterns which become its own finger print To us, this whirls in the carbon and striations are beautiful in their own right.

and a big plus.

The dial itself is heavily skeletonized, and the indices are applied on the inner of two rings around the peripheral The outer ring bears markings of 1 to 100, allowing a timing granularity of 1/100th of a second The double balances are visible through apertures in the dial piercings

The overall aesthetic is excellent.

The watch looks quite classy, and has some wrist presence We particularly like the little touches like the Zenith logo printed on the underside of the crystal, which looks like it is floating and lording over the dial Excellent indeed.

Though truth be told, the combination of heavy skeletonization, and the dark hues (50 shades of grey?) of the dial makes it a rather difficult proposition to read the time, and even more challenging to read the chronograph indicators in the dark Which is a pity, as the seconds hand spinning furiously around the dial, is quite a sight

We do note that there is a whirring sound as the chronograph is engaged.

We found it to be a rather pleasing buzz, and one which despite the ferocity of the hand spinning, has a calming effect

We guess the carbon case is perhaps also more fragile than its titanium or ceramicised aluminium cousins, but have no direct experience as we neither dropped the watch nor subjected it to sufficient stress to test this

The movement: El Primero 21

The movement remains the El Primero 21 which was also featured in the earlier models.

Except that for the Carbon edition, the star shaped rotor visible from the back is blackened, as are some of the plates

The El Primero 21 features two trains a regular wheel train beating at 36,000 bph []

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