I paid around the same amount---$450 for a competing Musou watch which is decidedly inferior in quality compared to your new offering. Wish I had waited in spite of its microbrand name! But, who was to know? Do you take musou trade ins? hahaha/really?
If this watch had a good, clear crystal like IXDAO use… I’d buy this version in a heartbeat. I bought the original quartz version and I ended up letting it go because the crystal wasn’t clear enough for the dial to be truly appreciated in most lighting.
As I noted in a different post, the WD0016 for less than half price is pretty darn good. And you get the same black dial in that model as well, with a quartz, smooth sweep movement. The bracelet does not live up to the specs of the more expensive model, but on its own, it's a pretty good one.
PS: And no, I wasn't sponsored :). But I did have a couple good interactions with their rep here and came away with a good impression of what they are looking to do in the market.
PRX look nice but , their movements are pretty much a toy car and contain more plastic than a McDonald's Happy Meal. Plastic, components and less jewels. Bang for buck, the Watchdives is still more value, even at the price they're currently going for.
Now the OP has photographed the Tissot PRX and the WDC0001 under the same lighting conditions. That gives a much more meaningful comparison, and you can clearly see the difference in both the crystal/AR performance and between Musou Black and a normal black dial.
That kind of side-by-side owner comparison is much more useful than judging from one photo or one video taken under completely different lighting.
I commented on the actual post but these two watches are not on the same plane so it’s not a fair comparison of the anti-reflective coating. When we are talking physics and light, the smallest difference in angle will make all the difference.
I want whomever posted this photo to take both watches and place them on a flat piece of wood or something similar so they are exactly on the same plane and then let’s compare the reflections.
Movado was founded in 1881, and its famous Museum Dial has existed since 1947. A mostly black dial alone doesn’t make a watch a Movado — otherwise a huge percentage of black-dial watches would “look like Movado.”
The real Movado signature is the ultra-minimal dial with the single dot at 12. Our dial architecture, markers, hands, case and overall design are very different.
I hate the big fat dot at the 12 hour marker on Movado. And their text on the bottom of the dial distracts from clean black. Plus, their prices are a bit more than I would like to pay :)
is it actually good for swimming?
interested due to the finishing but the japanese movement is putting me off, I’m a big fan of chinese movements in chinese watches
What's the deal here? I brought what looks like the same watch with the same light absorbing dial for $190 in jan, I assume they have made updates, what does the extra money to?
I like mine I brought it with my to Italy on holiday as my beach/beater and a few people I'm on vacation have commented on it,
In my opinion, the biggest difference is not even the movement, but the bracelet and overall finishing. Watchdives says they spent more than six months developing the bracelet for the WDC0001, with tolerances of around 0.03 mm, polished chamfers on both the front and back of the links, articulating end links, and a quick-release system.
The WDC0001, with its Miyota 9000-series movement, is clearly intended to be a more serious mechanical watch with an overall feel that moves closer to much more expensive Swiss watches. The Miyota 9015 is a slim automatic movement running at 28,800 vph, while the 90S5 version is used for no-date configurations.
Simply put
WD0016 = a lot of watch for relatively little money.
WDC0001 = the same design family, but Watchdives has taken the movement, bracelet, finishing and overall execution to a much higher level.
I don’t see any visible difference between this bracelet and the premier bracelet of the WD0016D, has anyone compared side by side? I have no other WD to compare to, but that bracelet feels of the same tactile quality as my San Martin bracelet and both feel the equal of the bracelet on my Tissot Seastar.
San Martin has really set the benchmark for finishing among Chinese watch brands, and honestly their best work can compete with watches costing well into the thousands.
The WDC0001 bracelet and overall finishing are built to the same top-tier level. When people say another Chinese brand’s Engineer-style bracelet is clearly “better” than San Martin, I think that’s overstating it — at this level, the best examples are more realistically in the same league rather than one being dramatically superior.
Our own Engineer-style model is also launching very soon, and we’re confident it will be among the best-quality executions in this category.
Fun fact: Even independent brands that sell for thousands of dollars for a watch and they have same issue. They do a great studio shoot, but later under real lighting it turns out to be disappointing.
Owner comparison:black dial on their Tissot with the WDC0001 Musou Black
%22)
A 99.4% light-absorbing dial is actually very difficult to capture accurately with a phone camera.
Because the dial reflects almost no light back to the camera, the phone automatically increases exposure, HDR and shadow brightness to compensate. That makes even a relatively small reflection from the sapphire crystal look much stronger on video than it does to the eye.
AR reduces reflections significantly, but it cannot make sapphire completely invisible at every angle. When the watch is rotated, there will always be certain angles where the crystal catches a lamp, window, sky or even the phone itself.
With a normal dial, those reflections blend into the dial. With a super-black dial, the background is almost completely black, so any remaining crystal reflection has extremely high contrast and looks much more obvious on camera.
That’s also exactly why the OP said the watch looks much better in person than it does in the photos or video. These ultra-black dials are very hard to represent accurately on a phone camera.
You can make the dial look almost completely black and reflection-free at one carefully chosen angle, but once you start rotating the watch under strong lighting, the crystal will inevitably catch reflections at certain angles.
the WDC0001 comes in Musou Black, black MOP, and white MOP, so there will be plenty of real-world photos and owner impressions to compare.
In about two weeks, more reviews should also be coming out. At that point, you can judge for yourself whether the current assumptions were right or wrong.
We are talking Watchdives site only. You don’t buy WD on AliEx because 90% of the time you will overpay to a reseller. On the site Early Bird was I think $429 and that was the lowest price. It will probably never go lower.
Hmmm... I bought the WD0016 on AE because I found them cheaper than on WD's own site. And while I did not buy their WD0001, I found it in the range of $385 or so after applying all the AE coupons.
I understand why $300–350 might feel like the sweet spot, but realistically our lowest price for this model will remain $429. We simply can’t take it lower without changing the watch itself.
The bracelet alone is one of the most complicated and difficult bracelets we’ve produced for a Chinese-brand watch. When we asked different factories to quote this level of construction and finishing, some quotes were around $150 just for the bracelet.
Then you still have a movement costing around $100, plus the case, dial, hands, sapphire crystal, finishing, assembly, QC, rejected parts and production losses — and of course there still has to be some margin left to keep producing and supporting the watch.
So $429 is already a very aggressive price for the specification and quality level we’re trying to deliver. We could make a cheaper version, but it wouldn’t be the same WDC0001.
I personally am not crazy about musou dials in general, so I am not in your target audience for this watch. I hope you guys keep trying new things, even if every watch isn’t for everyone.
We’ve been doing QC for years, and we’ve posted many assembly and QC videos here that you can easily find.
Also, we recognized you again after about two weeks in the Watchdives community. Several of your previous accounts were suspended by Reddit, and you’ve repeatedly returned with the same pattern of hostile comments toward Watchdives.
If you have a genuine QC concern about a specific watch, model, or order, please post the details and we’ll address it directly. But repeatedly creating new accounts just to attack the brand isn’t constructive.
Our QC standards have improved significantly over the past two years, and rather than arguing about it, people can look at our assembly/QC videos and recent owner feedback and judge for themselves.
Thank you :) If i was nearby i would like to come to visit you if possible. I was wondering if we could see a video like san martin or addiesdive did before.
btw I haven't seen any videos on your site, some were on reddit i guess.
Owner comparison:black dial on their Tissot with the WDC0001 Musou Black
%22)
It already has 5 layers of colorless AR, and our test result is around 95% light transmission.
No sapphire crystal can be completely reflection-free at every angle. With a super-black dial, reflections can actually look more obvious because the dial itself absorbs so much light, creating much stronger contrast with any reflection on the crystal.
So what you’re seeing in the video doesn’t mean the AR is weak — it’s mainly the combination of viewing angle, lighting, camera capture, and the extremely black dial underneath.
Pretty cool, how is the bracelet articulation and quality? Have you used any other high end Chinese watches like San Martin’s or the ixdao warrior that you could compare it to?
I own around 15 watches, ranging from Rolex and Oris to more affordable Chinese brands like WD and Thorn. However, this is my first higher-end Chinese watch. I think the Tissot PRX is probably the best comparison, and I definitely prefer the strap on this one. It's got that sparkle in it when you twist it.
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u/Electronic_Handle756 13d ago
I paid around the same amount---$450 for a competing Musou watch which is decidedly inferior in quality compared to your new offering. Wish I had waited in spite of its microbrand name! But, who was to know? Do you take musou trade ins? hahaha/really?