Winner 526 Review

A few weeks ago I posted an article about daring designs, watches that stood out from the crowd. I ended up ordering three of those four watches. I already reviewed the Lige and the Forsining. Now it's time for the third, the Winner.

The reference number 526 was used by the AliExpress store I bought it from; S1225 seems to be the same model, and on Winner's website 526 is split into 526R and 526G, depending on whether the watch comes on a rubber band or a bracelet. Mine was ordered on rubber.

The elephant on the picture is the triangle. This particular triangular shape (there are other such shapes, even from Winner) was apparently originated by Hamilton's Ventura series of watches. So, the 526 is an homage to that, more to the series as a whole than any particular watch.

How do we interpret the markers on the dial? In the Ventura series this is pretty clear: the crown is always the 3 o'clock position, and everything follows from that. In particular, that makes the upper corner of the triangle the 1 o'clock position. The markers on the 526 rather suggest that the upper corner is 12 o'clock. If we are looking around on Ali for other watches of this shape, we find both interpretations: 

So, with the more subdued markings on the 526 you have a choice: do it like the Hamilton and treat the dial as weirdly cut-off but normally aligned, or you look at the watch with a slight tilt to read the time comfortably: 

The case material is stainless steel, according to the spec. Howewver, slightly worringly and oddly worded, the spec also lists as a "craftsmanship feature": Non-toxic vacuum zinc alloy. What this is presumably referring to is seen on the back of the case

The silvery part which houses the movement is most likely stainless steel, and the surrounding yellow metal is that alloy. The non-toxic probably just means that there is no Nickel in that alloy, and indeed I did not get an allergic reaction.

The movement seems the standard Chinese movement without any upgrades. So we get 21,600 beats, no hacking, no hand-winding, and the time grapher reports +30s/d. The instructions for the watch indicate that you should shake the watch for 1 minute before first use. I didn't, and the next morning the watch had stopped. The second time I took it off for the night, it stopped again.

The rubber band the watch came with is very comfortable, but it was not colour-coordinated: the buckle is silver, the case is gold.

Branding on the watch is minimal: the only visible branding is the Winner-logo next to the 3 o'clock position.