Chronograph or Three Hands? What Those Subdials Actually Do

Walk along our counter and many watches have small dials set inside the main one. They look like the same idea. They are not. On some of them those small dials are a stopwatch. On the others they show the day, the date and the time on a 24-hour scale, and nothing on the watch times anything at all. Both are honest watches, and both are worth owning. Only one of them does what most people assume it does, and it takes five seconds to check.

Not Every Subdial Is a Stopwatch. Some of Ours Time Something.

Here are the ones that genuinely run a stopwatch, cheapest first:

• Philippe Lauren Black Square Chronograph at 69 euro (6,700 L). Square cushion case in black ion-plated steel, three subdials, the most distinctive shape in the group.
• Philippe Lauren Silver Chronograph at 72 euro (7,000 L). The same tonneau case in polished steel with a silver sunburst dial.
• Philippe Lauren Steel Chronograph at 72 euro (7,000 L). Round polished steel, black dial, three sub-dials, luminous applied indices.
• Philippe Lauren Black Chronograph at 72 euro (7,000 L). The same watch in black ion-plated steel, for anyone who wants it all one colour.
• Navimarine NVM180-A2 at 85 euro (8,200 L). The Navimarine chronograph in our range, and worth a note: it has two large ringed subdials rather than three. The pushers work.
• Daniel Klein Exclusive Chronograph at 89 euro (8,600 L). Blue sunburst dial under a rotating dive-style bezel, luminous baton hands, date.
• Hislon Masterwork at 184 euro (17,800 L). Sapphire crystal, jet-black dial, three subdials with red accents. The one to hold if you want to see what the extra money buys.

And the ones that only look like it: Navimarine NAVI 009 in gold-tone at 95 euro (9,200 L), Navimarine NT0029-2 at 85 euro (8,200 L), Navimarine NAVI 009 Marinemaster at 85 euro (8,200 L), Navimarine NT0031-1 at 85 euro (8,200 L), and Bigotti BG1.10154.1 at 84 euro (8,100 L). On the Navimarines the subdials are a calendar: day, date, 24-hour time. We put that in the product description of each one, because the wrong place to find it out is at home with the box already open.

How a chronograph is actually built, the column wheel, the cam and lever, the two hundred odd parts in a mechanical one, is all in our guide to watch complications. That is the last this article says about the mechanism. The rest is about which one is worth buying.

How to Tell in Five Seconds

Three checks, fastest first. You can do all of them across a shop counter without asking anyone.

• Read the dial. The Navimarine multifunction models print MULTIFUNCTION on the dial. If the word is there, the small dials are a calendar and that is the end of it.
• Read the small scales. A chronograph subdial counts to 30 or to 60, because it is measuring minutes and seconds. A multifunction subdial is marked with the days of the week, or runs to 24. Days of the week are unmistakable.
• Press the top pusher. On a chronograph a hand starts to sweep, and pressing again stops it. On a multifunction either there is nothing to press or the button only steps the calendar forward.

One more marking worth recognising. If the outer ring carries a descending scale from around 400 down to 60, that is a tachymeter, and it only means anything with a working chronograph behind it. Our guide to bezel types explains what it is for.

Hislon Classic or Hislon Masterwork: Same Money, Opposite Dials

The clearest way to see what a chronograph costs you is to put two watches from the same brand side by side.

Hislon Classic at 199 euro (19,300 L) has a sapphire crystal, a fluted bezel, a silver dial with fine horizontal striping, a date at three, and nothing else. It slips under a shirt cuff without catching.

Hislon Masterwork at 184 euro (17,800 L) has the same sapphire crystal, a jet-black dial, three working subdials with red accents, and a date. It is the loudest watch in the cabinet, in the good sense.

Fifteen euro apart. Same brand, same crystal, same 1-year guarantee, both new. The extra money is not buying more watch. It is buying a different dial. That is the whole decision, which is why we tell people to stop reading specifications at that point and wear both for a minute.

Side by Side

The Two Ends of the Cabinet Are Not the Same Size

This is the difference people notice first, and unlike the argument about subdials it is a plain case measurement rather than a matter of taste.

The Navimarine chronograph and multifunction cases run 44 to 46mm, and the pushers add width on the right-hand side on top of that. The classic Navimarine range is 38 to 42mm. Hislon Classic is 38 to 40mm and under 9mm thick. Our guide to case sizes explains what each of those numbers actually measures and which ones the brands leave out.

At the slim end of the cabinet, Navimarine NMM1011 at 60 euro (5,800 L) is the slimmest thing we sell, with a pale ice-blue dial and not even a date window to clutter it. Daniel Klein Premium Roman at 69 euro (6,700 L) is the dress-watch version of the same idea, cream dial and black Roman numerals. At the other end, Navimarine NAVI 009 Marinemaster at 85 euro (8,200 L) is a large black-dial multifunction with a marked bezel and three subdials, and its own description says it plainly: built to be noticed.

Whichever end you land on, the steel bracelet is not fixed. We take links out at the counter free of charge, for a watch that arrived by courier exactly as for one bought in the shop, so walk in whenever it suits you. Monday to Saturday, 8:30 to 20:30, no appointment.

More Dial Is Not More Information

Three subdials sit exactly where the hour markers would otherwise be. Something has to give, and it is usually the markers at 6, 9 and 3. On most chronographs the running seconds hand also moves off the main dial and into one of the small circles, so the question of whether the watch is still going is answered in a space about eight millimetres across.

What rescues a busy dial is contrast. Hislon Masterwork uses red on the registers so your eye separates them from the hands instantly. Philippe Lauren Steel Chronograph at 72 euro (7,000 L) uses luminous applied indices, which do the same job in the dark. A poorly balanced chronograph dial is one where three grey circles sit on a grey dial, and you will know within a day.

The opposite argument is on the same counter. Navimarine Steel 5ATM at 75 euro (7,300 L) and Daniel Klein Premium Roman at 69 euro (6,700 L) give you Roman numerals, two hands, a date and nothing competing. The test is one second at arm's length. If you cannot read the time in that second, no feature on the dial makes up for it.

Battery: the Cost of a Stopwatch You Never Use

A plain quartz watch here goes 2 to 3 years on a battery. A quartz chronograph with a date runs 1 to 2. Over ten years that is two or three extra trips to the counter, which is worth knowing but is not a large number.

A battery here is 200 to 600 Lek depending on which cell the watch takes, done while you wait, and we check the gasket while the back is off. There is more on how long a cell should last in our battery guide. None of this is a reason to choose one watch over the other. It is a reason to know what you are signing up for.

What Each One Costs to Look After

Every chronograph we stock is quartz, and that matters more than anything else in this section. A mechanical chronograph is a different animal, with several times the parts of a simple movement and a service interval to match. Our complications guide has that comparison. None of it applies to what is in our cabinet.

A quartz chronograph needs a battery and a gasket check, exactly like a three-hander. The one real difference is the pushers: each one is a hole through the side of the case with its own seal, so there are two more places water can get in than on a plain watch. We check them whenever the back is off. That is part of the job, not an extra.

Beyond the battery we do not publish prices, and that is deliberate. A pusher that has stiffened is not the same job as one that has not, and quoting a number before we have opened the watch would either overcharge you or trap us. We look first, we tell you what it costs, and then you decide.

So Which One Should You Buy?

• You will genuinely time something. Buy a real chronograph. The cheapest is Philippe Lauren Black Square Chronograph at 69 euro (6,700 L), the best built is Hislon Masterwork at 184 euro (17,800 L).
• You want the busy dial and nothing else. The multifunction models cost less than the chronographs at the same size and they tell you the day, which you will read far more often than you will time an egg. Navimarine NT0029-2 at 85 euro (8,200 L) is the pick of them.
• You want to read the time and stop thinking about it. Navimarine NMM1011 at 60 euro (5,800 L) or Navimarine Steel 5ATM at 75 euro (7,300 L).
• You cannot decide. Come in and wear one of each for two minutes. Nobody has ever left that undecided.

There is no wrong answer here, only a wrong reason. Buying a chronograph because you thought all subdials were chronograph subdials is a wrong reason, and it is the one this article exists to prevent.

Published by Iglisi Watch · Durrës, Albania · August 2026. Prices and stock current at the time of writing.