Review: Summer Love, the Luminox Recon Point Man 8820 Heritage

“This just can’t be summer love, you’ll see” sings Justin Timberlake. Well, here’s one of our choice summer watch for 2024. The Luminox Recon Point Man 8820 Heritage. The watch was with us for holiday, read on further to find out why we have chosen it to be our summer love.

Review: Summer Love, the Luminox Recon Point Man 8820 Heritage

The Luminox Recon Point Man 8820 Heritage has a retail price of SGD 915.60. Price is inclusive of GST and is correct at the time of publishing.

Summer is here and many of us would head out of town for holiday to take a short mid year break. Luminox is one of our choice summer watch to rock while on holiday due to its robustness and versatility. This time round, Stanley took it along to glamming in Cameron Highlands and clubbing Kuala Lumpur as many of you may have seen on instagram and here’s the full review of the watch.

First Impression/ The Case

When the Luminox Point Man Recon 8820 Heritage was first presented to us, the handsome look of the land based 35th Anniversary watch certainly mesmerized us. It’s as if we were on the beach sipping our favourite cocktail while admiring the super toned ladies playing beach volleyball. That’s how the Luminox is to us, having a toned and sporty vibe.

The 45MM Carbonox™ cased watch is not new to many. It is a reissue of the Luminox Recon Pointman 8821 that was released in 2011. The Recon Pointman series pay tribute to those who lead the recon units. It is designed as a navigation tool for reconnaissance units to navigate though different terrains. Complimenting the design, this latest iteration of the watch features yellow accents, an acknowledgement to the colours typically found on armoured and air mobile units globally.

Carbonox™ is basically a composition of carbon long bars or carbon powder. Having such composition allows the watch to be more durable and light weight which in turn translate to wear comfort. The material also features properties such as anti-allergenic and scratch resistance where it certainly makes it a benchmark for all adventure and tactical watch. Perfect for the gruelling tasks it was designed to handle.

During our week long summer vacation, the watch certainly held up in “gruelling” conditions such as glamping and clubbing. It came out unscathed and still looking brand new, attesting to the properties of Carbonox™.

The Dial

Since the watch is designed to be a tactical watch to be worn in war zones or reconnaissance missions, it was put to good test on the glamping grounds in Cameron Highlands. The first impression is that despite the crowded markings on the dial, it remains very legible. Even at a glance. Luminox has since updated the font used on the dial to make it an easier read as compared to the previous generation. The hour fonts are noticeably bigger and the choice of yellow accents on the 9 to 12 hour markers, the 0 to 15 marks on the bezel and the yellow second hand brings a contrasting pop as compared to the red accents on the previous generation.

Apart from the colour way and bigger fonts, Luminox has updated the expression on the cardinal points on the inner bezel. The walking tachymeter that is used to measure walking speed is now available on the same scale in kilometre (KM) and miles (MI) on the dial as compared to having to choose on either metrics in the previous generation.

Finally, the most important factor in all tactical, adventure and sports watches is the lume. The Recon Point Man 8820 Heritage features the Luminox Light Technology. It is a technology that is incorporated in all Luminox watches. What is unique is that Tritium gas is inserted into micro capsules, once encased, the lume should have a self illuminating lifespan of 25 years and is visible for 24/7. Now that’s quite a feat and a feature that I really enjoyed while glamping. The lume stays bright and does not lose its luminosity for the whole night. Cool.

The Movement

The movement is a Swiss Made quartz movement. Ya, quartz. Our mechanical fascination usually mean that we get excited and go gaga when examining a beautifully finished movement or admiring the balance wheel. But a watch like this is the perfect reason for a quartz movement. Why? In one word, practicality.

The quartz movement would usually be more hardy to experience the hard knocks of life along with you as there are fewer moving components on it. Fuss free, and almost always accurate to the second, quartz technology has came a long way where the accuracy is superb and certainly an important feature for such tactical watch.

The Strap

How can this be a tactical watch without a comfortable, durable and robust rubber strap? We are happy to report that it has one. The strap is soft and supple. It is pliable and contours around most wrist comfortably. During our two weeks wearing the Luminox, it feels right in both hot weather in Singapore, cooling weather in Cameron Highland. Basica, simple and just works. Kind of a theme with the Luminox Recon Point Man. Certainly no complaints.

Luminox have also kindly provided a NATO Strap for the watch on top of the rubber strap. The black nato strap, and is nice, but we do have one gripe. A nitpick if you will. The metal bits on the NATO strap are silver hued! We think it should be black to fully complement the watch, though that’s just cosmetic and doesn’t affect the utility of it during one’s summer vacation or during a recon.

Competitive Landscape

Tactical or military styled watches are quite common. But for our consideration, we take those which are priced around the SGD 1k mark.

First up is the Luminox Mil Spec that Luminox Singapore kindly lent us to destroy previously in the good name of experiment of how well a Mil-Spec watch would survive in a harsh conditions. Beyond Sharon’s adventure with it, both Peter and Stanley had their chance with it. And boy we were all impressed. The Mil-Spec gives the Recon Point Man a run for it’s money as it is certified “Mil-Spec” and it has an upgraded CARBONOX+™ case which has tensile strength that is twice as high as with CARBONOX™, with water absorption is three times lower thanks to a higher composition of Carbon Fibre.

Second worthy contender of the Luminox Recon Pointman 8820 Heritage is the almighty G-Shock Mudman. The G-Shock Mudman is in it’s third iteration. The Japanese contender of the Luminox not only brings more functions to the table in the package and is one that is solar powered which if worn often enough under the sun is enough to power it for many years to come.

Concluding Thoughts

Just like some summer love, the relationship has to end. In this instance, we had to return the watch to Luminox Singapore. But this just can’t be just fleeting summer love. Despite us returning the watch to them, we throughly enjoyed wearing it. The utility of the Luminox along with the nod of approval from the military forces and law enforcement units certainly makes our Deployant choice summer watch of 2024 one that we will seriously consider should we need a robust watch with an analog display.