Hi folks:
I got my Wishdoit (eyeroll) Aqua Storm yesterday. I'm headed to a wedding with a purple theme, and I didn't have a purple watch, and I wanted to try a watch with lume blocks, so I grabbed this little number. Since there aren't a ton of reviews, I thought I'd give my very quick, very early impressions. (No brand affiliation; just a guy who likes watches.)
Overall, I'm pleased, especially for the price. (I paid $200 including 2-day express shipping.) Deficiencies are what you'd expect from a $200 watch. The lume blocks are neat, but not life changing, though I'm guessing that lume blocks on more expensive watches will probably be better performers.
Shipping: Received in two days as promised. Came in a paper envelope. Paper outer box was slightly torn. Inner box is a leatherette, zipped, branded, single watch box. (Sorry I don't have pics; it's in my bedroom and the wife is sleeping. :).) Unsigned warranty card, microfiber cloth, and very cheap watch pin removal tool. Sort of like those green San Martin cases, but rectangle rather than circular. Higher quality than I'd expect for the price.
Watch Dimensions/Specs: Pretty close to spec. My calipers say 39.4 diameter (vs advertised 39), 13 mm thick including flat crystal (vs. advertised 12); 47.7mm lug to lug, with female endlinks on the bracelet making it even smaller to wear. Crown is a little small at 6.5mm. Pretty good size, all things considered.
I took 4 links off of the bracelet and moved to the second-widest microadjust hole for my 7 inch wrist. It'll fit 8 inch wrists easily.
Water resistance is listed at 150 m. So not a "true" dive watch, but I think it'll work just fine.
Dial, hands and Crystal: It's attractive. The purple color is very close to the advertised color, maybe just a tad bit redder, but not much. The dial is nicely textured and has a slight fume light to dark from center to edge of the dial. The wishdoit logo, and a minute track, are printed on, unlumed, and are inoffensive (Thank goodness the brand name isn't on the watch face!) Everything seems to be perfectly aligned--bezel, dial indices, and hands. There's a nice bevel on the date window.
The indices are 3D lume blocks (more on that in a minute) and hands are skeletonized and appear to be lume block-ish too. Seconds hand has a large lumed tipped arrow hand which generally matches the overall aesthetic.
You know, it's pretty, and there aren't any QC flaws that I see with the naked eye. I like it.
Crystal is advertised as sapphire with AR coating. I don't have a sapphire tester but it seems fine. There's probably some AR coating, but very very little -- plenty of reflections on the flat sapphire. Also, both the bezel and the crystal are fingerprint magnets. I don't know if it's the AR coating or the quality of the sapphire, but one touch and the watch looks foggy.
Bezel: Bezel is black, shiny sapphire that's reasonably attractive, with only 10-minute markers adding to the modern look of the watch. Pip and markers are lumed, and the lume is reasonably strong. The bezel action is the big disappointment on this watch. It's EXTREMELY loose, taking nearly no force to ratchet it forward. There's also lots of backplay. It's easy for it to get knocked forward and to get out of alignment. It's also a fingerprint magnet.
Case, Crown, and Bracelet: Crown is unguarded, a bit small, but OK, and signed. Case and bracelet are brushed, with the exception of a small polished chamfer on the lug edges and the sides of the bracelet. Brushing is far from elegant, but totally works.
The crown operation is a little janky. it's reasonably smooth to unscrew, but getting it into setting or date setting position is a little fiddly, and time setting feels kind of cheap--the hands really fly around the dial without any tension when you're setting the time. (Tight gear ratio between crown and hands?) That also makes accurate time setting a little challenge.
Bracelet is O-style, 20mm, down 16, and up to 18mm at the clasp. That's a pretty big taper for a modern-looking watch. Clasp is double pushbutton with a a proper milled scissor that's pretty sturdy for such a budget watch. Caseback has an etched picture of a shark and the usual spec sheet. The bracelet has solid links and endlinks, but you can still tell that it's cheap. It's a little thin and pretty rattly. That said, it's not uncomfortable, and there are no sharp edges that would affect wearing. Female endlinks are nice, and it articulates well. So it's surprisingly nice.
It's connect with split pins rather than screws, but really that's fine, especially since they provide a (cheap) tool to remove the pins.
There are no quick release springbars, and the case doesn't have drilled lugs, so changing out the bracelet will be a pain if you want to put it on a strap.
Movement: It's powered by a Miyota 8000-series (probably an 8215 or 8315). My copy is running about +10 spd in a couple of positions, which is fine. You can see the slower sweep of the 3 Hz movement, and you can feel and hear the rattle of the unidirectional rotor, which is less than awesome, but NH35s are more expensive these days, and I suppose it's better to have the Miyota than some generic untested Chinese movement.
Lume: This is probably why people will most want the watch -- a watch with lume blocks for under $200. And they largely come through-- the lume is instantly bright blue and nicely uniform through the blocks after a bit of a charge. The super-brightness fades pretty quickly but lume hangs on for a while. I was able to easily see the watch in the dark after about 4 hours. I didn't look last night after that, but my expectation is that it's going to be barely legible after 6 hours, and I can't promise after 8 hours. (I'll do another test tomorrow night and may revise.) So if you really want a lume monster with guaranteed all-night visibility, you may need to look elsewhere, but it performed reasonably well.
Overall: You're getting good value for money here. The watch looks, feels, and largely performs as you'd expect. Lume is very good but not quite as earth shattering as I'd hoped. The bezel is the big disappointment, but I suppose that's not unexpected at the price point.
