These Are The Best White Dial Watches You Can Buy

When it comes to watch dial colors, it’s the darker shades that get the bulk of the attention among men’s styles. Black and blue dial watches go with everything and are as classic as classic gets, while green dials are the industry’s hottest current trend. But for those times when you feel like adorning your wrist with something simple and clean, it’s tough to beat a timeless white dial, which is why we’ve rounded up the best white dial watches for men that the industry has to offer.

How We Made Our Picks

For this list of the best white dial watches, we looked across a range of prices and styles to come up with a group of clean-dial styles that will work for anyone. Whether you’re on the hunt for a field watch, a diver, or a dress watch, there’s a white dial timepiece out there to fit your taste. And if your tastes run a bit more complex? Well, we’ve got you covered there, too, with a sporty panda chronograph, an intriguing full-lume dial, and even an enameled work of haute horological art all popping up in our ranks. So keep your wrist fresh and clean by checking out our picks below.

Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical

In its standard black dial guise, Hamilton’s Khaki Field Mechanical is the prototypical field watch, recalling the hardwearing timepieces that donned the wrists of Allied soldiers during WWII. But slap a white dial on the piece and you get something else entirely. Sure, it still has all the heritage and build-quality you’d expect from a Hamilton field watch, but you’re getting an added bit of unexpected modern flash thanks to that stark-white dial.

Check our in-depth Hamilton Khaki Field watch review.

Farer Resolute II

A member of Farer’s new line of three-hander automatics, the Resolute subtly shows off the British microbrand’s trademark flair for color. That’s not an easy thing to pull off with a white dial watch, but the Resolute does so by way of its burnt orange seconds hand and inventive numerals that are made from solid blocks of ice blue Super-LumiNova that have been topped with a matte black finish, giving the indices a unique outline of blue lume in low light that really pops.

Marathon Arctic Edition MSAR

While Hamilton field watches were an ever-present timepiece on battlefields in the mid-twentieth century, the soldiers of today are more likely to be wearing something from Marathon. Makers of some of the world’s toughest watches, Marathon’s MSAR (Medium Search and Rescue) diver is built in accordance with U.S. Government specs and is engineered for search and rescue missions, with the white dial version being specially designed to be more legible in bright and snowy Arctic environments.

Mido Baroncelli Heritage Gent

If your wristwear tastes tend to lean more formal — or if you’re just in the market for a dress watch — then Mido’s modern classic really ought to be on your radar. Perhaps the best sub-$1K dress watch on the market, this unfathomably thin automatic (7.3mm) features a number of high-end features, like a heat-treated blued steel seconds hand, a decorated ETA 2892-A2-derived movement, and beautifully-finished doubled-sided dauphine hands — all balanced out by an elegant eggshell-textured white dial.

Sinn 104

Spend some time on any of the internet’s most popular watch forums and you’ll quickly discover that Sinn’s unusual pilot’s watch is a cult classic among the enthusiast set. Lauded for its impressive spec sheet, versatile dive watch-like looks, tough build quality, and overall functionality, the 104 is simply one of the best everyday watches on the market. Originally released in black and now available in a handful of colors, the slick white dial/black bezel version is arguably the one to get thanks to its monochromatic mastery.

Nomos Club Campus

OMOS is no stranger to white dial watches. By our count, the German brand lists over 100 clean-faced beauties in its catalog. And while you can’t really go wrong with any of them, this version of the Club Campus takes the cake for us. It offers the perfect amount of fun and whimsy that NOMOS’s budget-conscious line is known for while still remaining subtle enough to work in practically any situation. Easily dressed up or down with impeccable finishing and an in-house hand-wound movement to boot, this is one Club worth joining.

TAG Heuer “Night Diver”

James Bond has worn a lot of cool watches in his day, with most of them coming from the likes of Rolex and Omega (more on those brands later). But one of the coolest is an unofficial entry in the Bond watch catalog: an ‘80s TAG Heuer diver with a lumed dial that was briefly worn on screen by Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights. Modern-day TAG recently revived the “Night Diver,” and the modern take is better than ever. A member of the Aquaracer line, the new watch brings back the full-lume dial and complements it with black-lumed indices and a ceramic bezel.

Breitling Superocean II 36

While we are unabashed fans of Breitling’s vintage-inspired Superocean Heritage, the brand’s modern version of its flagship diver is no slouch, either. Boasting a striking combination of a pristine white dial and indices complemented by a matching white bezel, and Arabic numerals, this diver’s cool aesthetic looks ready to take on the deep. Unsurprisingly, it has the functionality to back up its appearance, with 200m water resistance and a COSC-certified chronometric movement.

Tudor Black Bay Chronograph

No “best white dial watches” list is complete without a panda dial chronograph, and we’ve got a doozy here from Tudor. Affectionately known as the “Baytona” given its passing similarities to sister brand Rolex’s ever-popular Daytona, the Black Bay Chronograph is simply one of the best chronographs on the market. Its classic sports watch styling seamlessly blends Tudor’s iconic design language with a traditional motorsports chrono, but the real star of the show is the Manufacture Calibre MT5813 — a COSC-certified automatic chronograph with a column wheel, a vertical clutch, and a 70-hour power reserve.

Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra

Long regarded as one of the finest everyday watches on the market, Omega’s Aqua Terra often toes the line between dress watch and sports watch — but not always. For this white dial version with bright orange and matte gray accents, the Biel/Bienne brand fully leans into the sporty side of things, making this iteration of the Seamaster more at home on the golf course than at a fancy five-course dinner. But should you venture outside the links, you’ll still find the same utility as always with 150m water resistance, robust anti-magnetic protection, and a METAS-certified Master Chronometer movement.

Grand Seiko “Snowflake”

At this point, Grand Seiko produces almost too many nature-inspired dials to count. The luxury brand constantly goes to the well of Japan’s natural world to inspire its intricate dial work, and the result is always stunning. But one could easily argue that the SBGA211 — better known as the Snowflake — has yet to be topped by Grand Seiko’s world-renowned craftsmen. The brand’s flagship for over a decade now, the Snowflake is a near-perfect watch thanks to its versatile sizing and styling, its smooth-sweeping Spring Drive movement, its impeccably-finished lightweight titanium case and bracelet, and most of all, that perfect snowswept dial.

IWC Portugieser Chronograph

The world of watches can be a bit stifling sometimes with its unwritten rules. For instance, there are a great many aficionados who will tell you that dress watches must be free of any and all complications — even a date window is sacrilege. But rules were meant to be broken, which is why dress chronographs exist. And there are few dress chronographs we’d rather strap on than IWC’s iconic nautical-themed Portugieser. From its classy looks to its alligator leather strap to its in-house movement, everything about this watch is executed at the highest level.

Zenith Chronomaster Original

Speaking of iconic chronographs, you simply can’t go wrong with anything that’s packing an El Primero movement under the hood. Tracing its roots back to 1969, Zenith’s groundbreaking high-beat automatic chronograph movement is still going strong and is arguably now better than ever. This version of Zenith’s classic caliber boasts a 60-hour power reserve and is capable of measuring down to 1/10th of a second, and it’s put to use perfectly in this faithful reinterpretation of the El Primero movement’s original home, the A386.

Rolex Explorer II

Arguably the most recognizable white dial watch there is, Rolex’s “Polar” Explorer was created to do exactly what its colloquial moniker would imply: explore the poles. Favored by Arctic and Antarctic adventurers because of its brilliant Chromalight lume and bright orange GMT hand that allows for easy tracking of 24-hour time in the continuously-dark polar environments, the Explorer II is one of the most robust watches that Rolex makes, with its 904L Oystersteel case and bracelet and Calibre 3285 movement having undergone a battery of extreme tests to ensure their durability and reliability.

A. Lange & Söhne 1815 TOURBILLON

When it comes to white watch dials, the purest expression of the form is undoubtedly enamel. A laborious process that takes several days of painstakingly firing and fusing powdered glass to a metal base, the end result of the dial enameling is a perfect, gleaming, porcelain white surface. This incredible Lange sports such a dial, along with other haute horology specs like blued steel hands, a solid platinum case, and a red 12 that’s been separately printed and fired from the rest of the dial. And, of course, the coup de grâce here is the in-house tourbillon movement that features some clever engineering of which only a company like Lange is capable.

The Best All-Black Watches You Can Buy

Every yin has its yang, and after you’ve selected the white-dial watch of your dreams, head on over to our roundup of the best all-black watches to pick out its polar opposite.