Review: Zeroo Time M2

Using my incredible mind-reading techniques, I’ve deduced that it’s very likely that Richard Mille’s $250,000 RM 67-01 in rose gold is just a bit of a stretch for you right now. Don’t worry, we all come up a bit short from time to time. In the meantime, while you wait for things to pick up again, there’s this instead, the M2 from Zeroo Time—and it costs just a single percent of the price.

Background

Now, a lot of people say they don’t like Richard Mille just like a lot of people say they don’t pick their nose—but I reckon there are a lot more people out there who do, and I’m one of them. Yes, I am wholeheartedly ashamed but not sorry to admit that I, Andrew Morgan, like Richard Mille watches. Would I pay $250,000 for one? Nope. Especially when it’s between that and being mortgage free. But then I don’t travel in the circles of people who have that kind of cheeky watch money, so it’s a nonsense question, really.

A lot of people say, “I wouldn’t wear a Richard Mille if you held my grandmother to ransom above a pit of hungry rattlesnakes,” and I get that. Relationships with my grandparents aside, I would very happily wear a Richard Mille if one were given to me, chief amongst them being the extra flat RM 67-01. First appearing in 2016 with an RRP around $85,000 in titanium and pushing $150,000 in rose gold, the RM 67-01 demonstrated with its slender case and reserved—for Richard Mille at least—dial, that the outrageous watchmaker could make a timepiece that was actually tasteful. No sniggering at the back.

As with everything, prices of this watch have advanced significantly since then, and the rose gold example will now set you back something close to a quarter million dollars. That’s a two-bed terrace where I live. That’s a puddle in the back alley of a Starbucks in San Francisco.

So, the speculation of would-I wouldn’t-I wear a Richard Mille is kind of moot anyway, because it’s just never going to happen. I might as well wonder what I’d look like sat in the Oval Office or with a tail. Except hold your horses, because watchmaker Zeroo Time—that’s Zeroo with two zeroes because reasons—has made it possible to get that experience, or something very, very close to it, for a pinch over $2,000.

This is the M2, and it’s not called that because it serves as a convenient bypass for the A2 between Strood and Faversham, but because it’s the second in the Modern series produced by Zeroo Time. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the first in the Modern series also looked very Richard Mille-ish, and apparently the success of that piece was enough to warrant a second, even more Richard Mille-ish watch.

So how does the experience stack up compared to a Richard Mille? Well, there’s a big gotcha when it comes to the M2, and it’s not just the horror that people might think you own a Richard Mille. This watch is made wholeheartedly and exclusively in the People’s Republic of China. Plot twist!

Review

Before you throw your mobile device out of a moving train in disgust, hear me out. Watches produced in China have a certain reputation, but for many of us who’ve been paying attention, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that China knows how to make a decent watch. Some might even say they’ve already been making a lot of many decent watches already, but it’s too early in the day for that.

Granted, this watch is heavily inspired by the RM 67-01, but it’s just about different enough to get away with it. Think of it as the watch equivalent of Hollywood’s “based on a true story.” Instead of 38.7mm by 47.52mm, it’s 39 by 50mm. Instead of the slender svelte 7.75mm thick of the RM, it’s 10.5mm.

That’s not bad actually. There are a lot of watches that should know better that aren’t 10.5mm thick. As a result, the watch, while not wearing as skinny as the 67, wears really well. It reminds me of the earliest Richard Mille’s back before they all went a bit nuts. It’s traditional, classic Richard Mille, if there can be such a thing.

The open dial concept from Richard Mille is very much here as well, but considering the Richard Mille’s calibre is completely custom, it’s no surprise to see the bulk of the difference here. The M2 is clearly based on a standard, round calibre, but clever design work has blended it in to the tonneau case without making it too obvious.

It’s all skeletonised for the full effect and done so with surprising balance and proportion. Normally when it comes to design details, that’s where these Chinese watches have fallen down in the past. Not so here, or at least not as much.

There’s a top sapphire layer onto which the dial and some very familiar numbers have been printed, presumably in whatever Google font most closely resembles Richard Mille’s. Below that you’ll see the innards of the calibre, from the skeletonised mainspring all the way through the geartrain to the balance wheel. Pretty much everything that might obscure your view has been peeled away, save for the keyless works over on the right.

Shame then that Zeroo couldn’t find a way to get the monochromatic looks with the wheels and jewels for the complete package, but I supposed beggars can’t really be choosers. If you can ever call $2,000 beggar money. Maybe in San Francisco.

It’s an automatic movement with 40 hours of power reserve and the water resistance is so low at 30m it’s best to assume it doesn’t exist, and of course that rose gold is a rose gold-coloured PVD-coated steel, so you aren’t buying yourself into a technical powerhouse. But then it isn’t $250,000 either.

There’s no denying that’s a chunk of a change to test out your aversion to Richard Mille, but I’m not sure what else there is out there you’d do it with. As a package, this is a surprisingly well put together watch that has one job and does it very well. The real problem is if you wear it for a bit and decide that you do really want a Richard Mille after all …

What do you think of the Chinese Zeroo Time M2? A great opportunity or more nope than a bed full of spiders?