SPOTLIGHT ON: Formula One CR7 Quartz Limited Edition

CAZ113.FC8189

I appreciate that it may be a little late in the day for 'first impressions' on this watch, seeing as it's a couple of years old now and getting scarce in the shops, but this is one that I feel quite strongly about and wanted to include here. Maybe I should have a 'from the archive' section for watches I want to talk about but which aren't new? Or maybe I should just go and try one of these on to make sure it really is as disgusting as it looks?

This came out around the same time as the McLaren F1 (which I also found pretty unappealing), but while the McLaren was bland and uninspiring, this one manages to give me a stomach ache even though it has things about it which I should like. For a start I really like green and black, so the colours should have been ideal for me. Granted I would prefer the green to be a bit more in your face (like my Nike trainers) but I guess that's probably a step too far for most people (and TAG Heuer). Actually something to note there if you haven't seen one in the metal is that the green is darker than it appears in the photos, so it's even less exciting that it could have been.

So why do I dislike this watch so much? Well for one thing I just don't get the whole Nato strap thing. The McLaren F1 had one and I didn't like that either, it just looks cheap, and this watch cost about £1200, which seems a lot to me. Okay it is a limited edition and I guess it's target audience is the Ronaldo fan rather than the TAG Heuer enthusiast, and to be fair it is black PVD coated titanium, but man does it look cheap.

I can't really understand why the Nato strap has silver retaining loops, surely they should have been PVD coated as well? And that CR7 logo, it kills me... seriously!

On the upside, the textured face is attractive and the white TAG logo pops nicely, and maybe if it was on a black rubber strap that would help give it a bit more ooomph? Even so, that CR7 logo is just abhorrent. I know I don't really go for logos on watch faces (the Indy 500 ones make me feel ill) but this one really takes the biscuit. I think it's perhaps because it's not even meaningful, it's not like it's a Manchester United badge or something (although those kind of things also make me queasy). Perhaps if the CR7 was in green and everything else was in white that would have been better? Maybe not, maybe this is just completely beyond my comprehension...