This is my new Hubloc Unico King Power. As beautiful as this watch is, and it really is stunning, I'm afraid it's likely to be the last Hublot we buy (sixth Hublot this). The watch itself is absolutely beautiful, no negative comments on the look of it though I suppose the clasp on the band should have been gold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alufyv_6geM
The biggest issue is that this watch was sold by Hublot Boutique in Las Vegas in this state - as you can see the movement is utterly messed up. At close inspection the second hand doesn't move smoothly. About a third of the time, this brand new Hublot would get stuck at the 15s mark when using the timer which would seize the whole watch. This would have been obvious to the store staff and management though as customers we didn't spot it. As such, this makes the Hublot Boutique in Las Vegas a place one would want to avoid, especially so given the $55,000 price tag on this.
The aftersales have been poor also. Hublot advised I take the watch to my local Boutique (London) which doesn't return emails or calls regarding the state of repair (in warranty). Whilst a part of this is poor service - I'd obviously never buy anything in this store either - the other issue is that Hublot doesn't have a clear system for tracking repairs and state of repairs. With Rolex for example, you can get near-instant information on the state of your watch and a precise ETA. Nothing like that with Hublot - "It's with the engineers in Switzerland..." - helpful. The ETA for this repair is 8 weeks, that's an estimate.
Thirdly, I also have to raise questions about the Hublot Unico movement. I'm glad the Swiss factory is looking at it rather than a local watchmaker but I very much doubt the watch was broken like this in the store or in transport to the store - it either left the factory in this state or, whilst working fine, some of the parts were either so poorly assembled or manufactured that it failed to this extent within a few months of being put on shop display. Quite suspect manufacture. I've never even seen anything like this with a mechanical movement, let alone on a new watch.
Next watch will be an AP, if I can find a nice looking one, or a Ulysse Nardin. Hublot have a way to go to professionalise their operation to justify the price tags.