I'm Blue (da ba dee da ba daa)

  Blue-dialed Seiko 5 SNK793K1 on a blue canvas strap. With my blue jeans. With my blue shirt. Been wearing the SNK793K1 a whole lot these days. Yes I did squeeze a 20mm strap into the 18mm watch, but, I'm kinda lazy that way. But fit it does. And blue it is.

  Nevertheless it matches everything on my outfit (it's accidental, I swear) but I'm not too thrilled with the outcome honestly, I had imagined it to look better, but it probably needed some other color combo to pop.

  There are several reasons why I keep going back to the SNK793 - besides the calming blue it gives me - the small size of the watch (36mm) meant it doesn't get in the way of anything - such as when I have to open gates or reach into drawers etc, it gets out of the way more readily than a big watch on my wrist.

  It's also light. For an automatic, it's lightweight again due to its size. The

  Sizing - my wrist isn't exactly big, at slightly bigger than 6 3/4 inches (depending on time of day and what I ate I think), the watch case fit just fine on my wrist. Any watch that is within 46mm to 36mm would look OK on my wrist I think and I'm fine with it.

You can read my previous review about it here.

Bund Straps RM61.65 8% Discount

Banggood Special: Hyper-Affordable Beauty! Hannah Martin 2011 Chronograph Military-Style Men Wristwatch

Hannah Martin 2011 Chronograph Military Style Men Wrist 

This is a such an affordable beauty. This can be gotten off of Banggood for only RM53. For those who are on a really tight budget, this chronograph with a Japanese movement, leather strap, 'vintage' aviation looks offers quite a lot of bang for the buck.

Specification
Brand	HANNAH MARTIN
Model	2011
Style	Fashion,Casual,Outdoor
Gender	Male
Movement	Quartz
Water Resistance	Basic Water resistance (Sweat, raindrops)
Special Features
Functions	Time Display
Appearance & Details
Dial Display	Analog
Dial Window Material	Glass
Band Material	Leather
Clasp Type	Needle Buckle
Dimensions	Dial Diameter: about 45mm  Band Width: about 22mm  Case Thickness: about 12mm  Band Length: about 250mm

Brown sunburst dial version

Blue sunburst dial version

Black dial version

Click images above to buy your own hyper-affordable beauty

Oh, my. Orient AP0003S 'Bambino Small Seconds'

Pictures say a thousand words. *Drool*

The Orient 'Bambino Small Seconds. With the new Orient Cal. F6222. features hacking and handwinding. As its name implies, it has a small seconds hand on the dial at 6 o'clock. This is also the first watch where it doesn't say "Water Resist" on the dial. Good call!

Get your Bambino Small Seconds here (Black dial) | Silver Dial | Rose Gold | Cream dial

My Son's First "Real" Watch

 One day walking about with my 7 year old son in town, we stopped by a watch shop as we usually do just to browse.

 My son surprised me: he went ahead and spoke with the boss, "I'd like to see these watches please."

 Not that he's shy (he isn't) but usually with talking with adults and transactions such as this he usually lets me do the talking. This time, he took charge of the situation, and totally caught me off guard.

After trying on several, he chose one that he liked, a yellow/white "Xinjie" digital watch with "30m" water resistance, a chronograph function, alarm, and day/date. I had no intention of buying it in the beginning, but the fact that he spoke up and talked in such a mature manner I just had to agree to his purchase.

And he paid for it. I bought it with cash, but he paid for the watch. Upon reaching home he took out the amount (MYR18) from his pocket money and gave it to me.

And so now he has his own watch, totally bought for himself, initiated the transaction himself, with his own allowance money, one that he wears proudly every day since, which has the added value of fully being his, the first whichout Dad's intervention (aside from being a temporary lender).

 He had several watches before, from the MYR1 vending machine cheapie that I got for him (he seldom wears it) and to him wearing my watch and smartwatch on some occasions, but this is the first watch that he can proudly say that is fully his own watch, from the get go.
 

This is my favorite watch so far this few months..

The Wingman with the tan leather strap is my favorite watch these months so far. I'm not kidding - the dial is easy to read from 5 miles away, the military-style PVD looks business, and it works. It's not the most expensive watch of the bunch, but it just works. Even with the poor lume, in low light conditions it was still easy to tell time from the big, contrast numbers. imagine this watch if Orient had actually put some decent lume in it! The leather strap is tan on the outside, but dark brown, almost black on the inside - which compliments the watch itself really well. This saw the most wrist time among the rest.

My Trifecta of PVD Orients

 

Here are my three Orients. And here's how they compare with each other -

Orient 'Flight' ER2A001B0 PVD

Build quality of all three are generally good, but the case that 'feels' most solid, to me at least, for reasons that don't understand myself is the Orient Flight. Perhaps it's the brushed finished followed by the PVD, and the feel of its crown, it feels just so much better. The screw-down caseback is solid as well, which helps it in its solidity in feel. The Flight also feels better on the wrist than the other two. It is marginal, as in the other two aren't bad, but this one feels the best, and has the best size on my 6.5 inch wrist. It wears smaller than its size too. Of all three, the Flight feels the best on the wrist, and to adjust. Too bad it can't handwind, I would totally handwind it often.

The lume when compared to the other two, sits in the middle between the Wingman and the Ray Raven. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean it is legible in the darkness. Surprisingly, after a while in the darkness, the dial numerals are quite hard to make out especially when the watch is sat on the bedside table and I have just woken up with blurry eyes trying to make out what time it is - I can't make out the double digits on the dial and even the triangle, and it took a while to really focus on the triangle to get the bearing of which is where. In this respect, unfortunately the dotted lume on the Ray and the clearly marked 3, 6 and 9 lines on the Wingman made it easier to orient (pun not intended! heh) the time, even with the extremely weak lume of the Wingman. The Ray is clearly the winner in legibility in the dark, followed by the Wingman (surprisingly).

As mentioned before, the black leather strap that came with it was thick, and feels pretty comfortable on the wrist, but it feels too much like compressed foam to me. I've yet to change them to something nicer.

You can get a Version 2 Orient Flight PVD here.

Orient 'Wingman' CER2D001B PVD
Best dial of the bunch, in terms of legibility in lit conditions for time of day. Just one glance and you'd be able to tell the time, even from very far away. The worst part is the very poor lume - the numbers and markers barely glow at all, and the hands had lume that were so thin it looked cracked when glowing. However, that doesn't mean it wasn't legible in the darkness - due to the markers at 3,6,9 and the triangle at 12, if I woke up in the middle of the night, I still am able to get the orientation right and read the time off the faintest glow it could master.

The screw-down caseback was polished but not solid with logo laser etched. Price considered, it wasn't bad - but nothing to write much about. The crown isn't screwed in so therefore only 30M at best water resistance. The crystal seems to be of a cheaper variety as well compared to the other two - it seems a bit less clear and has a tiny amount of fogginess to it. Not too much to be noticeable, but I think its there. Emphasis on I think.

The original leather strap that came with it was not too bad either, all things considered. I've changed that to a tan strap with a PVD deployant buckle. It looks badass this way, even though the deployant actually doesn't save any time putting it on, like I had originally thought.


Orient 'Ray Raven' CEM65007B PVD 

The Ray Raven had the best lume of the bunch and night time legibility. By far. Because each lume is a dot, glowing intensely green and a trapezoid 12 o'clock marker, with bright hands the watch was most legible in the darkness, even after some time had passed and the lumes had weakened. The screw down caseback is not solid but looks to be laser etched. Of course, the best part of this watch is the rotating bezel.

The case is polished and its PVD is excellent. The PVD on the bracelet that came with it however, seemed lacking. Anyway, problem solved as I've changed it to a silicone strap for water adventures. Naturally the 200M resistance gives complete confidence near water, this is one watch where I use water to clean it.

The Ray wears smallest. The crown wasn't as nice to the touch as on the Flight.

You can buy a new Version 2 Ray Raven from here.


Nitpicks

It's just my opinion, but I think the Orient font and logo should be the same size as on the Ray for the Flight and Wingman. They were just a tad too large. That said, they could have the option to not use the italics for the "Automatic" and "Water Resist" fonts, and in this case with the Flight, moved the logo to the crown, for a cleaner dial like all "Type B" Aviator watches.

Seiko 5 SNKK71

Stock photo

Yes, just joined to the Seiko camp by buying one, brand new. I got a SNKK71 for myself recently because I am bitten by the watch bug. The Seiko 5 series has the 7s26 movement with 21 Jewels, which is a very affordable and reliable workhorse movement. The SNKK71 has a black satin finished dial, and raised indices which are actually very beautiful and not captured by the pictures on the internet.


The caseback is hardlex and allows anyone to look into the 7S26 - which is nice, because this is the first time I owned a watch with a transparent caseback. And actually, even if they say it isn't decorated, the movement is finished in such a way that it still has some nice shiny bits to look at and admire.


I did not bother to get the bracelet adjusted, and immediately removed the bracelet and fit it with a leather strap as shown in my very poorly taken photo (sorry, this was taken at night, with room lighting:

Marvelous.

Bad picture

 Last post, I had the Orient Wingman on and looked like it has a huge overhang off my wrist. That's because I had the watch strap resting on top of the desk, and it was pushed upwards a slightly. And add the magnifying effect of my smartphone wide-angle(ish) camera, the watch looks like a huge clock on my wrist, and further made huge with the illusive wide dial of the Wingman. Add to that I was trying to get an angle without reflections. Which I assure isn't the case. The watch actually fits quite well on my 6.5++ inch wrist when all is said, the camera wide lens is the main culprit, followed by the slightly loose strap.

"Hegner" Watch 30M Water Resist

  Here's a "Hegner" Quartz 30M Water Resist watch I happened to come across and took this with my cellphone. Unfortunately the case back pictures are too blur (this was taken with indoor flourescent lighting at night) so we only have the front shots unfortunately. Never heard of "Hegner", but I suspect it's just one of those generic Chinese watches.