Inside the Rolex Cellini Dual Time, is an in-house made Rolex automatic movement with a 48-hour power reserve running at 4Hz. Some people wanted Rolex to insert a manually wound movement into the Cellini in the hopes that they would make it thinner but I don’t think that would have been at all necessary. First of all, I have little affinity for manually-wound movements in most instances if an automatic self-winding mechanism is possible for the same application. Second, I feel that the watch is imminently wearable as it is.

While the more basic Rolex Cellini Time has a simple lacquered dial in white or black, Rolex decided to give the Cellini Date and Cellini Dual Time pieces guilloche machine engraved dials that really help offer an classy look. If you look closely you’ll notice that the sunburst style engraving design mimics the fluted look of the bezel ring. The dials are available either in silver of black guilloche. Overall I enjoy the look of the dials, though they might take a bit of getting used to for some people. For one thing there is no luminant, which is a rarity on today’s Rolex timepieces.

The main dial is bisected with a minute ring, which makes for an interesting look. Thus, the main hour markers are baton style while the home time uses Arabic hour numerals. I like this, but I can’t help but feel that the hands are too short. They actually aren’t as Rolex decided to used only the inner part of the face as the watch dial. From that perspective the hands are the right size. But given that there is a second row of hour markers outside of the minute marker ring makes me sort of want the hands to extend more with the minute hand touching the end of the further hour markers, and the hour hand extending to the minute marker track.

While I do feel that the above thoughts are salient, the Rolex Cellini Dual Time is a lovely watch and could spell disaster for competitor brands that have banked on the fact that Rolex hasn’t really focused on classic evening wear-style watches for some time. With the new Cellini, Rolex returns to the formal watch game in a serious way and I think it will do quite well. Rolex will offer the Cellini exclusively in either 18k white gold (reference 50529) or 18k Everose gold (reference 50525) with both dial colors for each style. Each is paired to a very high-quality black alligator strap. Price for the Rolex Cellini Dual Time is 18,500 Swiss Francs. rolex.com