Zenith Elite cal. 650

[Macallan]

Anyone have any experience with the movement?

The Zenith Elite is available as a manual wind (cal. 650) at approx £1700 and automatic (cal. 679) at approx £2700. I prefer the automatic version because it is more simplier (no date or small seconds) and want it as a work watch; however, the price difference is not worth it for me.

 

[bluesman528]

The Elite is built as an automatic movement, they omitted the automatic block to get a kind of castrated version as a manual wind movement. Such movements (ETA 2801 or the historic Omega 6xx come to mind) are - without any exception I heard of - butt-ugly.

Therefore such a watch would not be an option for me, I would take the original automatic movement (and I have already put my money where my mouth is, I own the older Zenith model Port Royal with Elite cal. 680 for a few years now).

Perhaps such considerations can not wipe out the cost argument for you but then you can save your money for the most part and buy a simple quartz watch.