Quick Review: Brown Face, Titanium Case & Micro Rotor PAM 619!

Micro rotor. You had me at micro rotor. But a brown faced, titanium cased, automatic Panerai Radiomir with a 1940 crown is a whole lot of awesome, too.

This is definitely the thinnest Panerai I’ve ever owned or strapped on my wrist. And because it’s titanium (a combination of grade 2 and grade 5 titanium), you barely feel like it’s on your wrist. Put it on a nice strap with a decent tang (or pin as Paneristi like to call it) and it just floats on your wrist. Well, it floats as well as any 45mm watch can.

There are a couple of special things about this watch that I will cover in my full review. But the brown face has to be one of my favorites. It’s not a significant departure from the standard black face sandwich dial, but it does make a difference. Combine that with the slightly smaller crown and the brushed titanium case and a PAM-fan will notice immediately that this is something different.

But it’s not until you turn it over that you really realize something interesting is going on here. See that micro-rotor? Yep – that’s one thing that helps this be one of the thinnest Panerai automatics you will find – and actually one of the thinnest PAMs overall at 3.95mm thick.

So, this watch checks a lot of the boxes for what people want in a Panerai. Sandwich dial that glows like a Christmas tree? Check. Subsidiary seconds? Yep. Display back? Uh huh. But then it adds things like a micro-rotor and titanium case.

Did I wish it had the easy on/off strap system? Yep – as you can see in the pics the previous owner didn’t seem to know how to properly remove a strap and scratched the lugs. (ASIDE: It does have drilled lugs making it a bit easier to remove straps.) Did I wish it had more than 3 days power reserve? Sure – but adding a barrel would probably add to the thickness.

So, I’m liking the PAM 619. Hope you can check one out soon.

Note: A discerning eye will note that there are multiple straps being shown in the pictures in this review. My (gently used) 619 came with a light brown calf leather strap, but the “OEM” strap shown on the Panerai web site shows the brown buffalo strap. Seeing that I had one laying around, I put that on. I think I like the darker strap better as it seems to pull out the brown in the dial a bet better – which is one of the distinguishing things about this (and other titanium PAMs).

WHAT I LIKE: