The tale of goldiwatch and the three websites - a Carisen review

As a watch company, Carisen has been around since 2012, but you would be forgiven if you never heard of them. They have a presence on amazon.com (though the cdn1427 is not there) but not on amazon.co.uk, not on ebay, not even (and this is a Chinese brand) on AliExpress.

How did I come across it? I did some watch browsing on AliBaba, AliExpress's parent website. On AliBaba there are some watches not found elsewhere, and AliBaba also provides some fascinating background information about their suppliers, including Carisen.

Browsing I found the CDN1427, a mechanical watch availabe in the dial colours of black, white and blue, normally with a silver-coloured case, but the black dial could also be had with a gold-coloured one, and this is what I ended up choosing. What was partcularly interesting was that the watch could be customized. There are various listings of the watch on AliBaba that tell you about that customization is available for a MOQ (minimum order quantity) of 1000 or 500 or 50, and one allowed for MOQ=1, where you would edit your customization directly on the site. In the end this did not work out and I got the normal watch, partly because AliBaba is awkward, and partly because I was careless/stupid - anyway, I am just reviewing the watch (-company) here.

So, what are the three websites of the title? They are AliBaba.com (where I got the watch from), carison.com and carisonwatch.com, to which I will henceforth refer to as AB,CC and CW.

Let's go through the most important supplied information of the watch on those sites:

Price

• AB: prices vary, because the watch has at least 10 different listings on AB, overall range is at the moment $64.60 to $73.50. You can reduce the price if you buy in bulk, e.g. to $27.98 apiece if you buy 100,000 pieces or more (beware that not all listings give you the same bulk discount if you decide to supply your nations army with those watches).
• CC: prices are supplied on request; I didn't request, they have a MOQ of 100 pieces anyway
• CW: $399, down from $499 (I swear I saw it on that website a week ago for a bargain $356); the black dial silver case is $236

Movement

• Everywhere: Miyota 8215; however, one of those sites said just "Epsom" (parent company of Miyota), and the watch is also listed on AB as a quartz watch which it is not

Case dimensions

• AB: varies between listings, 41-42 (dial), 48.5 (lug-to-lug), case thickness 5-10mm if specified at all
• CC: 38mmx44.5mm, thickness not given
• CW:42x48.5 with 12.3mm thickness
• me and my caliper: CW is essentially right, though I got a thickness of 12mm on the nose; not sure what CC had been smoking, and how you would squeeze a Miyota 8215 in a 5mm case (AB) is an unresolved mystery

Water resistance

• the watch dial: 100m
• AB: 10 bar
• CC: 3atm
• CW: 10atm
• me: I guess the CC lister didn't know what they were doing, but there is no screw down crown, and mechanical watches with 100m resistance have normally a screw-down.

Crystal

• AB: two listings just said: "glass" three said "sapphire glass"
• CC: mineral crystal
• CW: sapphire glass
• me and my diamond measurer (which I do not fully trust) - we got a faint reaction, so perhaps one of those mixed crystals with just a tad of sapphire thrown in

Personal Impressions

I have a smallish wrist (17cm) and this watch wears big, I'd say you have to have at least a medium-sized wrist for this one. Chosing the gold colour for the case was a mistake - the watch looks blingier in the rendering than in real life, and a silver case would suit it much better. The dial gives me slight Mühle-Glashütte vibes, they have some models with somewhat similar dials.

I like the hands on the watch. They match the style of the markers, and are clearly a deliberate choice, not a mix-and-match. The hands are also loomed (markers are not), but it is not the strongest loom you ever see, even at the AB pricepoint.

Watchband: the blue dial is available on a bracelet, but this one is a leather band with a deployment clasp. Both band and clasp are branded, and compared to what you get on AliExpress this is very good indeed, especially the clasp. Superficially, this looks identical to any other clasp from China, but this is the most comfy I had yet, better than the clasp that came with my $200 Pagani Explorer. Other deployment clasps I had from there suffered from (i) pinching my flesh when putting the watch on, (ii) getting very easily undone, (iii) fighting my skin while wearing it, leaving notable marks when taking it off. This one suffered from none of these issues.

Can I recommend it? At the AB price, if you have a big wrist? Sure.