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IWC Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days Caliber 59210 (Ref. 5101)One of my most favored Swiss watchmakers is prepping a number of new timepieces for the upcoming SIHH 2011 even. The new IWC Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days Caliber 59210 watch (Ref. 5101) is among them.Playing on the crowded field of “affordable” dress watches, IWC Portofino has always been somewhat of an ugly duck in the family of beautiful swans.Now, however, the model is updated and seems to be moved a tad upmarket.The new IWC Portofino Hand-Wound 8 Days will be the most expensive model in the line-up, which will also include a Portofino Automatic (Ref. 3565,) Portofino Chronograph (Ref. 3910,) and Portofino Dual Time (Ref. 3610) GMT watch.Having successfully absorbed the core DNA of the recently refreshed IWC Portuguese family, the new model features a similar dial layout, is powered by an in-house Caliber 59210 manual-wind movement, and will soon be available both in stainless steel and in rose gold.The movement in question belongs to the Cal. 50000 family of engines and, being almost 38 millimeters in diameter, is rather large.Sporting a set of massive bridges and plates, the movement will possibly be especially sturdy and robust compared to calibers built with gentler, thinner, less rigid parts.Of course, the pocket watch-sized manual-wind mechanical movement has enough room for an oversized mainspring barrel which is capable of powering the watch for up to 192 hours.That is more than enough even if you plan to wear the timepiece only on weekends.If you, like me, belong to the neurotic part of the population that checks the fuel gauge every three minutes even if the tank is still three quarters full, then a beautifully executed power reserve indicator located between 8 and 9 o’clock may come extremely handy to you.Leaf-shaped hour and minute hands, solid gold hour indexes, as well as the small seconds indicator at 6 o’clock, also look extremely elegant.The Roman numeral at 12 o’clock may raise some eyebrows, but, all in all, this generation of the IWC Portofino family has a good chance of becoming one of the most popular since the line was introduced in 1984.If the price is right, that is.

IWC Portofino Dual Time in Rose Gold (Ref.IW361004)The new IWC Portofino Dual Time automatic GMT watch will be presented in a number of versions, but it looks the best in rose gold and black.As we have already reported, this year the Swiss watchmaker is going to put much effort into promotion of its entry-level Portofino line of timepieces.Besides the IWC Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days Caliber 59210 (Ref. 5101) that we have briefly reviewed last week, the company will also start selling a number of other watches, including a gorgeous IWC Portofino Dual Time.Available both in rose gold and stainless steel, the watch will be presented in a larger case measuring 45.00 mm in diameter and only 12.00 millimeters thick.The timekeeper with GMT functionality will be powered by IWC’s new Caliber 64710 automatic movement. There is still not enough info regarding this engine, but it is known that it will offer an impressive power reserve of 72 hours (3 days) and will be built on 29 rubies.After an unstoppable torrent of low-end watches powered by tried-and-true, but oh-so-boring ETA workhorses, the new Portofino line, which is animated by in-house calibers, looks like a breath of fresh air.Since the watch comes in an oversized case, reminding us about the times when a great deal of Swiss timekeepers was powered by movements outsourced from pocket watches, there is a lot of real estate on the Portofino’s black dial.IWC used the available square inches wisely, not overwhelming future customers with too much information.There are only two sub-dials on the dial: a 24-hour GMT indicator at 12 o’clock and a subsidiary seconds counter at 6 o’clock.The small corporate logo is perfectly counterbalanced with small date aperture at 3 o’clock and the thin, long leaf-shaped hour and minute hands look especially elegant together with long hour indexes made of rose gold.Since the metal looks especially nice if mixed with brown, IWC equipped the watch with a chocolate brown leather strap made by the Italian shoemaker Santoni.Not sure, how much this gadget is going to cost, but I definitely want one.