Review: Braun BN0076 Digital Wristwatch

December 11, 2012 by Bill Palmer

by Bill Palmer

Beatweek Top Lifestyle Product for 2013

A generation ago, Braun sold just a few units of a limited edition wristwatch called the DW30 which has since become the stuff of legend. Its design was minimalist and futuristic at the same time, with a rectangular silver brushed metal face (decades before Apple began using the motif on its computers) and a distinctive notched black band. The genuine article is difficult to find these days, but the styling lives on through other watches and clocks inspired by the original. And now Braun itself is resurrecting the DW30, now called the BN0076 with only minor changes.

Selling in apparently unlimited quantity this time around, the BN0076 costs $250. It offers standard digital watch functionality: one front button changes the screen to the date and then the seconds and then back to the time; the other front button turns on an orange hued backlight. A third button on the side allows you to set the time. So you’re paying for the styling and the quality, not the functionality. And it stands out in both those areas.

The leather band, textured on the inside, is comfortable whether worn loosely or tightly. The tall and slim rectangular design of the face allows the wearer more wrist flexibility than traditional round watch faces. And the look of it, even in the twenty-first century, still manages to have a futuristic feel – not in an over the top Star Trek kind of manner, mind you, but more along the lines of looking like what a digital wristwatch of the future might actually look like. Not bad for a product which was originally designed before almost anyone even owned a computer.

With the rise of smartphones which tell time, fewer people are wearing wristwatches now than at any point in our lifetimes, so wearing a watch is something of a statement in and of itself. The Braun BN0076 makes that statement nicely.

Price: $250 • braun-clocks.com