Jacob & Co. Epic SF 24 Watch Review

Jacob Co.s unofficial mandate is to continually impress and surprise its core base of customers. Targeting members of the ultra elite, the people who tend to buy Jacob Co. watches arent looking for sheer value or refined brand prestige. What the people who buy Jacob Co. watches want is novelty and originality. Thus, as Mr. Jacob Arabos enduring mission is to satisfy his customers, his challenge is to keep things fresh, keep things interesting, and in many cases keep things complicated.Understanding a bit about the brand might help to explain where something like the Jacob Co. Epic SF 24 watch came from. It isnt really inspired by anything Jacob Co. has in the past which is actually a point of pride for the brand given that they are always trying to come up with something new. I dont think we covered the Jacob Co. Epic SF 24 on when it first came out a few years ago. We did, however, cover the new-for-2016, even more high-end version called the Jacob Co Epic SF 24 Flying Tourbillon. Whats that all about? Well, you guess it, it is the Jacob Co. Epic SF 24 watch you see here, but with the inclusion of a large flying tourbillon on the dial. You also have the option to decorate it with a lot of diamonds no surprises there, as these timepieces do bear the Jacob Co. name on them. In titanium sans and precious stones, this is about as bare-bones as a Jacob Co. complicated watch gets. Whats complicated about it? Well, the entire concept of the Jacob Co. Epic SF 24 watch is simple, and that is to adapt the notion of a split flat (where the SF part of the name comes from) system as the world time indicator. The interesting world time indicator system of course needed to be integrated into an otherwise traditional watch, so here the designer sort of attached the cylindrical-shaped split flat system on the top part of the case.The marriage of a round case with the attached region for the world time indicator works, but it isnt what anyone might refer to as the peak of elegance. There is a handsome functional sense to the logic in how the watch works, and its overall utility and legibility. It earns praise there, but I wouldnt call the Jacob Co. Epic SF 24 a conventionally attractive luxury watch.It is, however, remarkably comfortable. Put the Jacob Co. Epic SF 24 on your wrist and you can hardly believe how comfortably it fits. Ive actually experienced this with a number of Jacob Co. watches? many of which seem to have totally weird cases. The brand does seem to put a lot of effort in to wearing comfort. It might not be a universal rule, but in the context of strange watch cases, more feel comfortable on the wrist from Jacob Co. than I find is the case with odd watch cases from many other brands. At 45mm wide (water resistant to 30 meters), the Jacob Co. Epic SF 24 case has a nice solid feel to it along with the customary low weight that comes from its titanium construction. Much of the case is also made from pieces of AR-coated sapphire crystal, as well as inset rubber along the sides of the case, in the crown, and for the world time indicator adjuster button. Most of the case is just 13.65mm thick, but the case has its maximum thickness of 16.7mm thick where the world time capsule is.Split flap information display systems are uniquely appropriate because they, like mechanical watches, are a vestige from before the electronic screen displays and were often found in places such as airports and train stations. A series of flaps rotate in a circle like an old Rolodex to indicate various information. This is adopted to a world time indicator where the flaps indicate a reference city as well as a time in 24-hour format to the right of the reference city.To set up the world time system, as with similar watches, the user needs to synchronize the watch to their local time, and then adjust properly. A push on the button to the left of the split flap system advances the reference time zone ahead one hour. I do hope Jacob Co, designs the split flap world timer system to be very durable because who ever wears this watch is going to be constantly playing with this complication. [...]