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Tested: Linde Werdelin SpidoLite II

written by A.Morgan - 12th Dec 2011

There aren’t many watches around that are genuinely difficult to formulate a stable opinion of before being properly seen in the metal.

The Linde Werdelin SpidoLite II is one of those watches – from pictures alone it turns a brain that is usually judgmental with a brutal immediacy into a stuttering, indecisive mess. Most watches have usually been branded with a decisively firm opinion by the grey pulp between my ears within around 0.013 seconds, but the SpidoLite seems to have turned my decision-making ability into a broken record. Is it a piece of awe-inspiring engineering or just a very expensive kid’s toy? Does it look like the frontier of wrist-worn science and technology, or just an ungainly wrist-limpet? Do I want to show everyone the futuristic design or do I want to bury it in the garden like an embarrassed cat?

The proof of the watch, to paraphrase, is in the wearing, so it was with a somewhat more heightened excitement than usual that I waited for the SpidoLite to arrive, and arrive it did, in a sleek, gloss black box that was angled such that it looked like it was going 100mph just sitting on the desk.

Let’s get the admin stuff out of the way before we move on any further – the SpidoLite II, due to its high-end materials and low build numbers, is not a cheap watch (starting at €9,360), but despite the challenging looks, the on-paper spec more than adds up. The three-part titanium case is milled using a five-axis CNC machine – as used in the aerospace and Formula 1 industries – for approximately six hours to give it its skeletonised facets, and the movement has been specially made by the Concepto Watch Factory and treated in a black gold finish, so it’s no amateur effort.

But does the actual, physical SpidoLite match or exceed the sum of its parts? Seeing it for the first time having only before seen it in pictures is like the difference between VHS and Blu-ray. Visualising the complex case structure from a 2D image is no match for seeing the actual thing, and adding depth and shape to a flat representation allows the brain to finally twig what is going on in the amongst the lattice work of angular titanium. The design has evolved to such a point that the add-on dive and ski computers are no longer needed for the company to have its own recognisable DNA – in fact I’d be willing to bet that most of you reading will have forgotten that the attachments even existed.

It is properly impressive, there’s no doubt about it. It’s also actually quite sleek, and despite the bold proportions, wears very comfortably and also quite inconspicuously if needed, which might come in handy if one ever gets bought by someone who didn’t get approval first…

The industrial design doesn’t stop at the case either, and on closer inspection other details emerge that start to justify the watch’s value. The dial, for example, is a complex piece of engineering in its own right, with slots and facets that allow the wearer to peer in at the inner workings such as the stencil-cut date wheel and the time-setting mechanism.

But with its positives come the negatives, and like any high-end low volume product, there will always be a few niggles. Fortunately these annoyances are small and virtually insignificant, but nevertheless they do exist. Some of the inner edges on the outer case, for example, are quite sharp, and although they will never probably to be touched, it’s still a detail that seems to have been overlooked. More annoying though is the crown, which is deeply embedded in the crown guards and requires the fingers of a small child to unscrew. Fine if you wear the watch all the time, but even then there will be the odd month where date-changing could become a bit of a pain.

All in all, pretty minor issues. Overall the watch is a brave and original design, and the attention to detail (other than the two points already made) and creativity make other watches in the same price range seem a little, well, drab. As someone new to watches, even someone with a sizable budget, it’s unlikely that the Linde Werdelin will be the first port of call, but as someone who has perhaps had and become bored of the standard go-to watches, the SpidoLite II will not disappoint, as long as the challenging shapes are to taste.

So having tried it, worn it and experienced it (and you can too – Linde Werdelin offer a week’s try-before-you-buy service), have I now managed to come to some kind of permanent conclusion? I think I have.

I think…