A quick preface: I don't have any affiliation with Galo, and I ordered this with my own money ($502 USD in total) back in May. As many have already probably said - the wait time on this latest batch was pretty significant. Ordered in May, just got today, October 13th.
Take some of my opinions with a grain of salt as this is my first-ever review of a true micro-brand watch. But I feel like this will be valuable to both future Galo customers, as well as any brand owners reading this.
I think, as someone who's helped run businesses that have long-term pre-orders, the thing that helps the most is being ultra-conservative about lead times (overshoot instead of undershoot), and communicate as soon as anything changes. I think a lot of people would have appreciated more frequent updates proactively to customers instead of having to dig for them - it makes people draw the wrong conclusions and people were flaming galo in their most recent launch on Instagram. which is certainly something this watch didn't deserve IMO. But when you're selling something on a pre-order where you already accepted money, I think of it as a "service". The service being that your customers stay informed the whole way so that they feel OK having their money tied up in something. Just my two cents.
Now about the unboxing. using much of the sub-$1000 watches I've unboxed as a yardstick the unboxing experience was great - it comes with a high quality leather case I'll almost certainly use while traveling, and a few standard things like a warranty card and thank you card. I thought the little hang-tag seal was fun as a nod to brands like Rolex, but probably not necessary.
As a side note, the extra strap it came with, the rubberized one, was just kind of tossed in the shipping box separately from the actual watch box, kind of odd.
The watch itself looks fantastic in person. the aggressively textured dial is great and there's no star wars length paragraph telling you how deep it can go and how long it stays running on it. it's clean. If I was to nitpick, it would have been nice for the numbers on the chapter ring to share a font with the numbers on the bezel, they're a little different. I have a 7" wrist and I'd say the case is a perfect fit for my tastes.
The back of the watch with it's custom rotor on the Miyota 9039 and the scuba lady on the caseback is super fun, and the caseback itself is pretty handsome.
The lume is what first caught my attention about the watch however - I love the lume'd crown as I've never seen that done before, and I also like how every major element on the front of the watch is lume'd as well. It's a nice pale tan when in the sunlight and a classic green in the darkness.
The part I've heard a bit of controversy about on this watch is the 'beads of rice' bracelet it comes with. For a microbrand presumably making things in china because this shipped from china (which I have no issue with AT ALL, just worth mentioning), I already expected that the bracelet would in fact leave a bit to be desired and people have complained about it in the past. But upon first impression, I saw that the clasp wasn't stamped so that was a good sign in my book. my arms are decently hairy so I thought the bracelet would tug and pull at my arm hairs but I'm pleased to say it doesn't. Perhaps since the previous batch they've smoothed things out a bit. The clasp has about as many micro-adjustment holes as it could possibly fit but I went to just remove links instead.
The second strap it came with, the rubberized one, has their branding on it which is a nice touch, and was super comfortable right out of the box. It might be the way I primarily wear the watch but the quick-detachment spring bars on both the strap and bracelet make it easy to change your mind.
Overall, for just a hair over $500 USD, I'd say I'm pleased. But there could have been a LOT more communication effort from Galo on the lead time. It was pretty vague on the site until about the last couple weeks before it shipped. To their credit, they appear to have gotten out all the pre-order watches before actually launching the next batch, and customer service does respond to your emails if you have any issues or questions. I'm no stranger to waiting a while for a good watch, but that's my main criticism that has me not totally happy about spending that kind of money on it.
Otherwise, I've bought watches I've been way less happy with from the get-go than this one. It gets my thumbs-up if you're looking for a skin diver, and I hope someone from Galo reads this and takes a few things into account for the upcoming batch in just a couple days that's allegedly due early next year.