SEVENFRIDAY M2/05 Action Talks Review

SEVENFRIDAY is a brand that I wasn’t fully versed on prior to starting Hourstriker. I had the passing knowledge of the brand and their cushion shaped watches. I had never seen one in person, let alone handled and worn one though. What always struck me about their watches was how brash and bold they were, Sevenfriday watches truly don’t look like any other watches out there.

SEVENFRIDAY was started in Zurich, Switzerland in 2012 by Dan Niederer. Niederer studied law and after practicing for a few years in Switzerland decided to change careers and moved to Sydney, Australia to manage a company that distributed luxury goods including watches. After a decade of working for that company, Dan moved back to Switzerland to set up his own design studio, which then led to the formation of SEVENFRIDAY.



Being from Switzerland and also being involved with numerous watch brands over the 10 years he distributed watches, Dan realized that he did not agree with many practices and traditions found in the current watchmaking landscape and had to create his own brand to truly get behind something he believed in. This was the start of SEVENFRIDAY. I really love this way of thinking, since I currently find myself really not liking some of the industry trends, especially the thought that smaller is better.

A SEVENFRIDAY watch can be seen from a mile away since most of their range consists of larger cushion shaped designs. Typically cushion shaped watches tend to be reserved for vintage or dress watches mostly with smaller case dimensions. SEVENFRIDAY flips this train of thought on its head. SEVENFRIDAY watches are both large in diameter as well as thickness.



For my first real introduction to the brand, SEVENFRIDAY offered to send me one of their newest, and now sold out models, the M2/05 Action Talks. The Action Talks is no wallflower, coming in a case measuring 47 mm in diameter by 15.8 mm in thickness. The case is polished stainless steel with a golden perlage finished center band. This animation ring is actually bronze PVD with a bouchonne finishing. We haven’t even touched on the dial yet, but the Action Talks just demands attention.

To be honest, I’m not really that used to wearing non-round watches. The most time that I’ve ever spent with a different shaped watch, was when I wore a tonneau shaped Richard Mille RM 005 for a few weeks many years ago. Putting on the Action Talks was a big adjustment for me at first, but something I grew to like over the course of wearing the watch.



When the Action Talks arrived from SEVENFRIDAY it came with the full retail packaging, including a stunning presentation box. I touched on this during my last review of the Luminox Atacama last week, a nice presentation box is extremely important to me, and I just hate the current trend of offering tiny eco-friendly boxes to watch collectors spending tons of money on timepieces.

I’m happy to report that SEVENFRIDAY ships the Action Tanks is a very unique and interesting box. The box is meant to resemble a small shipping crate with various stamped messages around the crate from “Carry with Caution” to “UP / DOWN” arrows to the brand’s logo and an area for the owner to put their information. The crate is also functional with a top cover that slides off to reveal the actual case for the watch. The watch case is a black foam cushion shaped cube that resembles the watch case and is made out of 100% recycled materials. Inside the case sits the watch resting on a black foam cushion. The bottom of the crate contains your paperwork as well as a fun red cleaning rag.



Ok, so now let’s get on to the actual watch. The first thing I noticed about the M2/05 Action Talks is its weight. The watch measures in at 156 grams, which should be expected from a 47mm stainless steel watch with a solid case back and automatic movement. Being a fan of carbon, ceramic and titanium watches, typically I would say this watch is just way too heavy… but honestly the Action Talks is kind of going for this vibe. There is no attempt here to pass the Action Talks off as a sports watch or a delicate dress watch, this watch is meant to just be big and bold, and weight goes along with that. It would be weird to pick this brash watch up and it to be feather light.

If you look at the press release photos for the Action Talks watch, you can tell this watch is meant to not be taken super seriously and could fit right into the world of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s the type of watch that could have been the fly on the wall to some unbelievable situations and have some crazy stories to tell. The two tone design just gives off that amazingly trashy 70s vibe that we all love.



The next thing that really stood out to me was the design of the dial on the Action Walks. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the dial text that I noticed first, which I really thought was the calling card of the watch when I we first did an article about the release of the watch… but we’ll get to that later.

The dial of the M2/05 Action Talks is truly unique when compared to other brands. The majority of the watch dial is static. There is no running seconds or open work showing the movement. Most of the dial is also completely covered with only two small registers on the right hand side. The right most and larger semi-circled opening shows part of the green hour ring with 30 minute increments added as well. The rest of the hour ring is covered by a finished metal plate with evenly spaced small oval cutouts. You can just barely make out the hour ring under this plate, but when setting the time it’s more visible.



Just to the left of the hours ring is smaller opening containing the green minutes ring with numbered minutes for every 5 minutes with two indices in between. The metal plate covering the minutes ring does not have any openings to it, but is solid and contains the text “ACTION TALKS” – “BULL SHIT WALKS”, with the “SHIT” being replaced by the poop emoji in gold.

When I first saw the press photos of the watch, I thought this was a bit corny… but I have to say having the watch in hand, it actually plays extremely well with the overall aesthetics of the watch and even adds to it. It’s very obvious that SEVENFRIDAY marches to their own drum, and the Action Talks is a great example of this. I feel if a brand like Patek Philippe decided to put this on a dial the torches and pitchforks would come out, but it’s almost to be expected here and works well.

The rest of the dial features a silver SEVENFRIDAY logo in the centered of the dial with on top of a textured metal grey background. A dark background with horizontal striping completes the outside of the dial beyond the hour and minutes rings. Three screws for the hour ring along with three smaller screws for the minutes ring are also visible on the dial. With the in your face case design, this dial really goes very well with the watch. The lack of any real movement is soothing when combined with the loud case design. I feel that something with a lot of movement like the Uylsse Nardin Freak X we just reviewed would have just been way too much for the rest of the design of the Action Talks.



Part of the fun of getting a new watch in that has a unique dial is figuring out how time is told. For some reason I was expecting the Action Talks to have a lot of movement on the dial. I thought there would be a seconds “hand” showing active movement, but there wasn’t. I wound the watch a bit to make sure it was running and still didn’t see any movement. I then went about setting the watch… The MIYOTA 8215, has a date function, which the Action Talks does not, so the first position of the push pull crown really doesn’t do anything except set a non-existent date. The second position sets the time, which when I started adjusting noticed how the time was told on the watch.

At first glance I believed that the inner ring was the seconds display since it was labeled to 60 and the hours ring featured minutes as well as hours. I thought the inner ring would rotate every 60 seconds and the outer ring was meant to display both hours and minutes… wrong.



The inner ring is meant to be a more accurate minutes adjustment with the precise minute being signified by a cutout in the polished inner ring containing the SEVENFRIDAY logo. The outer ring then is a broader indication of the hours and minutes, with the time being signified by a black stick marker. The Action Talks is super easy and straight to the point after you play around with the watch for a few moments.

If we’re talking about setting the watch, I have to say the M2/05 has one of the grippiest crowns I have ever used, even including extreme diving watches. When setting and winding the watch, you can actually feel the crown digging into your fingers. It’s a weird feeling, but nice to actually have that much grip on the crown. The crown is also on the left hand side of the watch, because why not? It’s the first watch I’ve worn with a left handed crown and actually wasn’t bothered by it. I guess that’s how people wear a Rolex GMT-Master II Sprite on their left wrists. Maybe SEVENFRIDAY thought if the large crown on a 47 mm watch was on the right hand side, it would dig into people’s wrists. I’ve heard people complain about watches that do that, mainly the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshores and IWC Big Pilots, but I own and have owned several of each and have never had this problem.



Turning the watch around shows the solid case back’s informative design. There is a map of Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania with lines pointing to Switzerland, China and Japan. Switzerland is where SEVENFRIDAY is based and where their watches are designed. China is where SEVENFRIDAY watches are manufactured, and SEVENFRIDAY says there is no dropoff in quality to Swiss assembled watches. Finally Japan is where the watches MIYOTA movement comes from. It’s refreshing to see SEVENFRIDAY be so open and honest with where their watch is manufactured and where critical parts come from.

The case back also contains an NFC chip that allows the owners to register the Action Talks with SEVENFRIDAY. This NFC chip also acts as a means of verifying the authenticity of the watch. This is a super interesting idea and would drastically cut down on counterfeit watches. I don’t see the super traditional watch manufactures adopting this technology, but it would be a nice addition, maybe even adding it to the box and papers.



The Action Talks comes on a super substantial 28 mm handmade green leather strap. Both the front and back of the strap have suede like textures, and I have to say this is one of the nicest OEM straps I have ever seen. The quality of this strap is even beyond straps I’ve seen on six figure watches, very impressive. The strap has plenty of holes left when strapped onto my 7.25” wrist as well.

The strap of the Action Talks tapers down to 24 mm for the buckle. The buckle is crafted out of stainless steel and reminds me of the large buckle you’d find on a Panerai Luminor. If you’ve read any of my recent reviews, you know I’m not a fan of standard buckles at all and prefer watches to be on a depolyant clasp. Most of my reasoning for this is that on larger top heavy watches, when you flip the watch over to latch the buckle, there is a very high chance of the watch falling. Although the Action Talks is a large top heavy watch, I’m not sure a deployant clasp would look right on it. I do have a Panerai on a deployant and it’s fine, but Panerais just look better with a big beefy buckle. With how brash the design of the Action Talks is, I do feel the right choice was to go with a large buckle in this case.



On the wrist, the Action Talks certainly has a presence. Surprising this 47 mm watch wears way smaller then my 46 mm IWC Top Gun Chrono, 48 mm IWC Big Pilot Top Gun Perpetual and 44 mm AP Royal Oak Offshore Montoya… the reason being that the M2/05 has no lugs. So while those three watches have lug to lug measurements well into the 50 mm range, the Action Talks has no lugs, so its lug to lug is the same as its case size of 47 mm. Now that doesn’t make the watch look small, it just wears smaller than you’d think.

Being so weighty and decently think, the watch is very top heavy, but the 28 mm strap keeps the watch right in place and centered on the wrist. I would think that if SEVENFRIDAY went with a more standard strap size of say 22 mm, the watch would probably move around on the wrist quite a bit. The strap really didn’t require much break in time and the watch wore comfortable for the few hours at a time I wore it out. I would say the weight was pretty much always present to me, but I do typically wear watches crafted out of lightweight materials.



I feel a lot of weight is put on a watch having an in-house manufacture movement. For smaller brands and those that don’t have an unlimited R&D budget, I see nothing wrong with using off the self movements. Some of my personal watches including my IWC GST Aquatimer 2000 and AP Royal Oak Offshore Montoya don’t even have in-house movements, sure newer Aquatimers and Offshores do, but these are still two of my favorite watches of all time. Also adding an in-house movement into the fold just exponentially increases the price a watch has to be sold for.

The MIYOTA 8215 is a solid Japanese automatic mechanical movement, and it’s obvious that some level of customizing was done to achieve the unique time display that SEVENFRIDAY uses in the Action Talks. The 8215 offers a decent 40 hours of power reserve, and with no date, setting the watch only takes a few moments if it does wind down.



On our timegrapher, the Action Talks recorded some of the best results I’ve seen of the watches we’ve had sent in for review. The watch was constantly between +1 to -2 seconds a day while leaving it running on the timegrapher. Honestly the only better watches I’ve seen is my 25 year old (never serviced) IWC GST Aquatimer 2000 and IWC Top Gun 46 mm Chrono which both recorded flat 0s across testing. That is very impressive for a watch that retails for $1,640.

Wearing the Action Talks around surely attracts a lot of attention. The unique cushion case with no lugs and the bronze colored animation ring just draw in so many eyes. When people take a closer look at the watch, they are instantly interested in the unique dial layout and get a chuckle when they read the dial text. This is definitely not a watch for introverts to wear. I don’t feel like SEVENFRIDAY’s intended audience for the Action Talks are people that like to keep to themselves though.

So what do I think about this watch overall?

That is a bit of tricky question to answer. Up until now, I feel all of the watches I’ve reviewed, minus the Hublot King Power Oceanographic, could be used as a daily wearer. I feel the styling of the Action Talks along with its messaging make it more of a second or third watch than something you throw on every day. There is nothing keeping it from being a daily wearer with its very comfortable strap and wearing smaller than its case size suggests though. The Action Talks even has a splash proof 30 meters of water resistance.



I think SEVENFRIDAY knows the Action Talks is a polarizing watch and fully embraces that. You can 100% see this when looking at how they shot this watch for press photos. SEVENFRIDAY offers tons of watches that would suit the daily wearer role much better, but this is the brand just having fun and saying “We don’t really care, wear what you like!”

The M2/05 Action Talks was a great hands on introduction to SEVENFRIDAY for us. I think I gave us a feel for their watch design language while also showing off their belief in not following what other brands are doing and releasing. We can’t wait to see what SEVENFRIDAY will send us next to review!

We’d really like to thank SEVENFRIDAY for sending us the Action Talks to review.

If you’d like to learn more about the M2/05 Action Talks or any other watches in their catalog, please take some time to visit : SEVENFRIDAY

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: M2/05

Retail Price: $1,640

Case Size: 47.6 x 47 mm

Lug to Lug: 47 mm

Thickness: 15.8 mm

Weight: 158 grams

Case Material: Stainless Steel 316L (Bronze PVD Animation Ring)

Bezel: Polished Stainless Steel

Strap: Green Leather with Stainless Steel Pin Buckle

Movement: MIYOTA 8215 (Japanese)

Functions: Hours, Minutes

Power Reserve: 40 Hours

Water Resistance: 30 Meters