NOMOS Club Sport neomatik 34 Purple Review

A few weeks ago we reviewed the Club Sport neomatik 42 date in blue from Nomos. The Club Sport models represent the sportier offerings from Nomos and come in a range of sizes from 34 to 42 millimeters as well as a host of dial colors. When we requested the 42 mm Club Sport, NOMOS also offered to send us a 34 mm version to compare the larger model with.

We covered the history of NOMOS in the above review of the Club Sport neomatik 42 date and also went into a more detailed history of the brand in our older review of the NOMOS Tangente 2date. If you don't feel like reading through either one of those reviews we will go ahead and give you a brief overview of NOMOS before we get into the review of the Club Sport neomatik 34.



NOMOS was founded by Roland Schwertner in Glashütte, Germany in 1990 just two short months after the fall of the Berlin wall. While Glashütte had always been a hub for watchmaking even rivaling their Swiss neighbors for excellence, a lot of that innovation was put to a halt during the cold war era. Once communism fell and Germany was re-united the centuries old traditions in watchmaking were allowed to take root again. Glashütte watchmakers hadn't forgotten their craft, they just didn't have an outlet for it in East Germany.

NOMOS would launch their first watches in 1992 which were Bauhaus style in design and focused mostly on the aesthetics of the timepieces. While quality movements were used and modified by NOMOS, the brand wasn't making movements in-house at the time. 2005 would mark a huge moment in the history of NOMOS when the brand launched their first in-house movement. This would lead the way to when in 2014 NOMOS unveiled their Swing System escapement which would move the brand to becoming completely independent from Swiss component manufactures. This also made NOMOS one of the only watch manufactures that produced nearly every component in-house.



Today NOMOS is the largest manufacture of mechanical watches in Germany and puts a strong emphasis on the excellence of their in-house movements. The brand also has a wide range of models ranging from classic Bauhaus inspired pieces to fun and sporty pieces such as the Club Sport.

Today we're going to be looking at one of those more and fun and sports pieces in the Club Sport neomatik 34 with the purple dial. Naturally being from the same family, the Club Sport neomatik 34 resembles the Club Sport neomatik 42 date with the key visual difference being the lack of a date complication on the smaller piece. Otherwise besides the spacing of dial elements the watches look remarkably similar.



Initial Thoughts

When the Club Sport neomatik 34 arrived naturally the first thing I noticed was the amazing purple dial. The watch uses a deep purple color with a sunburst finish that just radiates off of the dial. Depending on the lighting the dial can appear anywhere from near black to a brilliant plum. Purple typically isn't a color you see on watches and when you do it is normally over the top bright. In the case of the Club Sport it is mostly subdued but still very effective.

The next thing I noticed about the watch was how solid it felt in hand. Even being a smaller watch the Club Sport neomatik 34 feels great in hand and on wrist. With all of its links in place the watch only weighs 94 grams on a full stainless steel bracelet. This isn't feather light but not heavy either, the weight seems to exude quality and the watch is well balanced on the wrist.



The final thing I noticed about the Club Sport neomatik during my initial time with the watch was the stunning DUW 3001 in-house movement which can be seen through the display case back. The movement uses a skeleton winding rotor with NOMS branding on it that has Geneva (Glashütte) striping on it. There is also nice usage of perlage and numerous blued screws to admire. The balance is nicely framed and gives the movement a bit of motion and additional visual appeal. I'm not always a huge fan of display case backs, but it would be a shame to cover up this movement.

Technical Specifications

The NOMOS Club Sport neomatik 34 is crafted out of stainless steel and has a case diameter of 34 mm and a lug to lug length of 41.5 mm. The thickest part of the watch is 8.6 mm and as mentioned before the weight of the watch is 94 grams when all of the bracelet links are present.



The Club Sport has a domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coatings on both the top and bottom sides of the sapphire. Under the super clear crystal is the awesome purple dial. The galvanized purple dial has a subtle sunburst finish to it that gives the dial just that much more pop. Like I previously said the dial can range in color from a near black deep purple to a more colorful plum based on the lighting conditions.

NOMOS uses a mixture of Arabic numerals and stick hour markers on the Club Sport. All even number hour markers get numerals while the odd numerals get stick markers. The hour markers are all heavily coated with Super-Luminova and glow a brilliant bluish green in low light. The 6 o'clock hour marker has been replaced by a sub-seconds dial that has a concentric circle pattern to it. Around the outside of the dial is a printed white minutes track as well.



The sub-seconds, hour and minute hands are all high polished with the hour and minute hands being covered with a line of lume as well. These hands also glow the same bluish green as the hour markers. In low light situations the abundant use of lume makes telling the time extremely easy on the Club Sport.

Finishing off the dial you have the NOMOS Glashütte branding at 12 o'clock along with "neomatik". At 6 o'clock you also have the "Made in Germany" text that proudly proclaims that the watch is manufactured in Germany.



The bezel of the Club Sport is nicely defined and is completely polished. NOMOS did not choose to use any brushed or satin finishes on the Club Sport neomatik 34 instead applying a high polished finish to the entirety of the case. Looking at the profile of the case you can see that the lugs curve down nicely and follow the shape of your wrist.

On the right hand side of the case you have a polished screw-down crown that is nicely scalloped. There are no crown guards on the case keeping the clean look of the Club Sport intact. Once the crown is unscrewed you can wind the automatic movement in the resting position. There is no date on the 34 mm Club Sport so there is only one crown position to pull out to. Position one stops the seconds hand and allows you to set the time. Pushing the crown back in causes no jump in the minute hand and screwing the crown back in requires no extra care to align the crown to catch. The screw-down crown also aids in the excellent water resistance of 200 meters for this smaller watch.



Flipping the watch over shows off the large display case back with an amazing view of the in-house DUW 3001 caliber. The bezel of the case back is rather slim and includes engravings for "Sport", "Club 34" and "20 ATM" water resistance. I love how NOMOS has a bit of fun with the water resistance engraving by using a little cartoon whale next to "20 ATM". The DUW 3001 caliber is sized nicely for the 34 mm Club Sport and fits the case perfectly. On top of the movement you can see the partially skeletonized winding rotor that reads "NOMOS Glashütte Deutsche Uhrenwerke". The rotor along with the mainplate are finished with Geneva stripes, with other pieces of the movement not covered in this decoration using perlage. There are also numerous blued screws and a nice unobstructed view of the balance.

The DUW 3001 is equipped with the NOMOS Swing System escapement ensuring the highest level of accuracy. The movement beats away at 21,600 vph (3Hz) and offers 43 hours of power reserve. On our timegrapher the DUW 3001 recorded an accuracy of -2 seconds per day when averaged out over several positions. This is amazing accuracy and well within chronometer specifications.



The NOMOS Club Sport neomatik 34 has a lug width of 18 mm and comes on a stainless steel bracelet that tapers down to 16 mm at the deployant clasp. The links have a three part construction where the outer two parts are brushed in finish and the inner link is polished. This is a similar design and look to what is seen on many sports watches giving the Club Sport a lot of its sporty character. The links use a pin and collar system for sizing and just require a watchmakers hammer and pusher to size. Finally the clasp is high polished and features NOMOS branding. The clasp requires both pushers to be pushed to release the clasp and features no micro-adjustments. The clasp does have three different positions where the bracelet can attach to, which with a spring bar tool in hand does allow some finer adjustments.

On The Wrist

To be honest the NOMOS Club Sport neomatik 34 is just too small of a watch for me to wear. I'm a little nervous size wise at 38 mm, so 34 mm is a no go for me. My wife however took this chance to wear the Club Sport out a few times. Her wrist is 5.25 inches and she wears anything from 30 mm all the way up to 41 mm.



My wife commented that the Club Sport was extremely comfortable on wrist and loved the look of polished case and dual finished bracelet. She said that the bracelet reminded her of the bracelet on her Rolex YachtMaster 16622 as well. She also added that she just loved the purple dial and it went well with pretty much everything she wore with it. My wife, and I for that matter, tend to have a pretty monochrome color palette when it comes to our clothes so that really isn't too much of a shock.

Very rarely does my wife get approached while wearing a watch unless we happen to be at a watch event or she is wearing something crazy like a rose gold Ulysse Nardin Freak X. This was the case with the Club Sport, but we did show it to a few friends of ours while out for drinks. Naturally most people commented on the purple dial hue and marveled at the exposed movement on the rear of the watch.



Value and Position in the Market

The retail price of the NOMOS Club Sport neomatik 34 Purple is $3,390. For that price you are getting an expertly crafted timepiece running an extremely accurate fully in-house movement. The watch is also stunning to look at with its purple sunburst dial. Just like with every review we've done, now is the time to compare it to other watches on the market with similar specs and see how it adds up both in terms of features and value.

First up we have the king of women's watches in term of sales, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual. I picked a 34 mm version in stainless steel with a pink dial to compare to the Club Sport. The Oyster Perpetual has half of the water resistance of the Club Sport at 100 meters and runs on an in-house caliber 2232 with a little more power reserve at 55 hours. The Rolex is also a good deal more expensive than the NOMOS at $5,900.



Moving on we have the Seamaster Aqua Terra Shades from Omega which is also 34 mm and crafted out of stainless steel. The watch also has a fun purple dial like the NOMOS and adds a date function not seen on either above watch. The Aqua Terra splits the difference between the NOMOS and Rolex in terms of water resistance at 150 meters and runs on an in-house Omega caliber 8800 with the same power reserve as the Rolex at 55 hours. Like the Rolex the Omega is a lot more expensive than the NOMOS at $6,600.

Next up we have the Carrera Date from TAG Heuer which is crafted out of stainless steel and has a case diameter of 36 mm. The Carrera Date has the similar sports watch look as the other three watches and features a unique bright pink dial. The watch only offers 50 meters of water resistance and runs on a TAG Heuer caliber 7 automatic movement which is based on an ETA 2892 or Sellita SW300 and has 50 hours of power reserve. The Carrera Date like the Aqua Terra also adds the date function and is priced right in line with the Club Sport at $3,350.



Finally we have the Lady Serenade from fellow Glashütte manufacture Glashütte Original. This watch is crafted out of stainless steel and has a case diameter of 36 mm. Like the Carrera Date and Aqua Terra the Lady Serenade also has a date function and features a blue mother of pearl dial. The Lady Serenade is less of a sports watch and only has 50 meters of water resistance and runs on an in-house calibre 39-22 automatic movement with only 40 hours of power reserve. Once again the Lady Serenade is much more expensive than the Club Sport at $8,100.

As you can see from the four watches we compared the NOMOS Club Sport neomatik 34 to that the watch is an excellent value for its price. The NOMOS either has better specs or is extremely similar to the other four watches and was nearly the least expensive. Only the TAG Heuer was a little bit less expensive but didn't come with an in-house movement which adds tons of cost.



Closing Thoughts

Since the Club Sport neomatik 34 is intended to be a watch for women I will skip the "is the watch for me" part of the review. My wife did find the watch extremely fun to wear during the few times she had it on her wrist though. She did give me her seal of approval for the watch as well.

I really would have no issue recommending the watch for anyone looking for a smaller yet sporty timepiece that really has some serious horological chops with its super accurate in-house movement. The Club Sport is also an excellent value when compared to similar sports models from other top manufactures that feature in-house movements. The fun purple dial is a nice touch as well, but NOMOS also offers the watch with a few other dial colors if purple isn't to your tastes. The more than enough 200 meters of water resistance just isn't seen in this size of sports watch either. Finally I find it a lot more interesting to wear something from a smaller manufacture than a watch from a massive brand that mass produces their pieces.



I'd really like to thank NOMOS for sending us both the 42 and 34 millimeter versions of the Club Sport neomatik. The 34 mm version is a faithful version of its larger sibling just missing the date window and giving up a bit of water resistance. Both watches served as a great introduction to the sportier pieces from NOMOS. I've thoroughly been impressed with the three watches I've reviewed from NOMOS so far and they just prove to me that the brand can create some truly special pieces. Hopefully we get more pieces in from NOMOS in the near future to continue our exploration of the brand.



For more information about the Club Sport neomatik 34 Purple please visit : NOMOS

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: Reference 757

Retail Price: $3,390

Case Size: 34 mm

Lug to Lug: 41.5 mm

Thickness: 8.6 mm

Weight: 94 Grams

Case Material: Stainless Steel

Bezel: Stainless Steel

Strap: Stainless Steel with Deployant Clasp

Movement: NOMOS In-House DUW 3001 Automatic Movement

Functions: Hours, Minutes, Seconds

Power Reserve: 43 Hours

Water Resistance: 200 Meters