REVIEW: The Little Watch That Couldn't. (But Did.)

SPECS:

• 41mm Case Diameter

• 47mm Lug-to-Lug

• 15mm Thick

• 22mm Between the Lugs/Strap Size

• Automatic

• 3 ATM WR

Ugh, vacation ending. I hate that, don't you? It's the last full day and you're well aware that tomorrow it's time to travel back home to the daily grind. I don't know if anyone else does this, but I like to order things before going on vacation so I have some treats to come home to afterwards. I find it takes the sting out of vacation's end.

Well, I just got back from an early summer beach vacation [as an aside, I only wore my Timex Tide/Temperature/Compass watch on this vacation and updated my review on how it performed] and came home to one of my treats in the mailbox, this $25 OCHSTIN automatic purchased from Aliexpress. I saw it on the site and fell in love with the homage appearance to the ORIS Big Crown Pointer Date:

(Photo from ORIS)

But it wasn't until I saw it in person that I realized just how nice it looks.

Except it doesn't have a pointer for the dates, which line the outer perimeter of the dial. It does have a date window - albeit a tiny one that is hard to read - that also cuts into the 3 (which will undoubtedly would be a deal breaker for some).

After I got over my surprise of not having caught the missing pointer when placing my order, I realized that it really didn't matter to me because the watch design still appealed to me, from the choice of font for the numbers, to the markings between the hour markers and the unused date numbers, to the matching blue dial and leather strap, to the red tip on the seconds hand.

In an unusual move for me, I ordered it in rose gold-tone, which looks great with the blue.

The plating is quite good for a watch in this price range, as the pics depict, and the dial printing looks great when wearing it, despite some slightly fuzzy edges under a 12x.

Another funny thing about this watch is the way the seconds hand moves. It's not regular, even movements. It'll skip along as per normal, then look like it skips a beat and jumps, then regular again, etc. It's as if it has an indirect-drive system for running the seconds hand, like the Miyota 8215. But this watch has 22 jewels and the Miyota has 21.

And you know what? That jumpy seconds hand doesn't bother me either, because I don't study the seconds hand when looking at my watch, I simply see that it's moving and that's sufficient. Plus on the timegrapher, the accuracy was excellent when balancing different positions, within a few seconds per day (net), amplitude in the 300-degree range, and a beat error between 0.4 and 0.1, depending on position. I'll take that any day for an automatic.

When taking the close up of the shock protection, I noticed that the jewels were indeed oiled.

So to address the title of my review...the little watch that couldn't (but did)...well, it couldn't replicate the ORIS Pointer Date functionality but did pay sufficient homage to the design that it did win my heart. I love this little watch, despite it's obvious flaws and only recommend it to those like-minded watch collectors who also could overlook them. Which, for $25, is pretty easy to do.