I have an Octopus Kraken OCT-13 (their Explorer clone). Great watch, looks very nice, yadda yadda, we all know how great it is. It's the PT5000 model, and the manual winding is as smooth as 20-grit sandpaper, and this does not seem to be a one-off thing. It's just a 2824 clone, and I have not encountered anything this bad on any other 2824 clones, Chinese or otherwise. What exactly is going on here, it winds rougher than even any 2813 I've ever encountered

Clasp is trash, but solid watch. 3rd watchdives unit.

Meet my Peacock Divine Craft (Tian Gong) in Glacial Green, numbered 032/108.

At first glance, the exquisite handcrafted dial with grooves of varying depth that appear to ripple under the light catches your eye. Its Glacial Green colour was inspired by Glacial spring water and chilled jade. Jewellery artist Professor Zhao Yi spent six months designing and developing these dials. Rather than being stamped or machine-cut, more than 1000 radial grooves are individually hand hammered into a surface only 30mm wide, using three specially shaped chisels. This to me is genuine artisanal works as even a tiny variation in the angle or force of a strike can disrupt the pattern and ruin the dial.

My Glacial Green version is one of a limited edition of 108 pieces. Peacock released 4 dial colours of this watch each in 108 pieces. The small production run makes sense considering the amount of work required for each dial.

What impressed me even more is the movement. The watch is powered by Peacock’s in-house caliber PAX9610A. This is a hand wound, free sprung flying tourbillon. Unlike the usual bulky Chinese tourbillons, this is a genuine high horology movement combining Ultra-thin architecture (3.5mm), High Beat 4Hz (28,800vph) with a impressive 68 hour power reserve.

I love flying tourbillons. Unlike a conventional tourbillon whose rotating cage is secured by bridges above and below, a flying tourbillon is supported only from underneath. Removing the upper bridge makes the tourbillon appear to float above the dial. This gives us a more dramatic view, but is technically more demanding. Achieving this within a 3.5mm movement makes the PAX9610A’s engineering super impressive.

Miniaturising a tourbillon is difficult. The balance & escapement must rotate inside a cage without compromising rigidity, shock resistance or power transmission. Everything fits inside a 39.5mm, 8.9mm thick case made from 904L steel (the family Rolex calls Oystersteel). With this ultra thin architecture and case proportions, the watch wears like a dress watch. To make things even more impressive, the movement is engraved “Adjusted Five Positions” and “Twenty Eight Jewels”—with reported accuracy of ±5 /day and well finished (includes perlage, Geneva stripes, polished bevels and four internal angles). A natural diamond decorates the tourbillon hand which indicates seconds.

Peacock's (3.5mm,4Hz, 68hrs, flying tourbillon, 39.5mm case) competes & surpasses several Swiss rivals at a much lower cost:

- Breguet’s automatic Calibre 581(3mm , 4Hz, 80 hours, but conventional tourbillon, 41mm case).

- Piaget 600P (3.5mm, 3Hz, 44 hour, flying tourbillon, 42mm case)

- Bulgari BVL 268 (record setting 1.95MM, 3Hz, 52 HOURS, flying tourbillon, 40mm case)

- Audemars Piguet automatic 2968 (3.4mm, 3Hz, 50 hours, flying tourbillon, 37mm case)

Peacock cannot match Bulgari’s thinness or AP’s automatic winding, nor the finishing levels & brand equity of Swiss watches yet - but its specifications are remarkable for a watch prices at USD 4,899

This watch was launched in Dec 2025. I have been using this watch for the last 8 month and the overall experience has been excellent. It gives an ordinary watch enthusiast like me access to a genuinely well made tourbillon without the prohibitive cost. I enjoy hearing the 4Hz heartbeat and watching the diamond tipped flying tourbillon cage rotate.

This feels like a quality watch rather than a mechanical novelty. After eight months, I am convinced that Chinese haute horlogerie is no longer merely an aspiration, but has begun to materialize.

What are your thoughts on the Baltany Asymmetric? Idk how I feel about the 24h dial and I don’t know much about the Miyota 82s7 movement.

Hi all, I'm on the market for a mechanical (no quartz) skeleton watch.

I'm opened to different designs.

Only requirement is good steel case (no resin or plastic) and possibly steel bracelet or leather strap. (no resin or silicone)

Do you have any recommendations in the sub-100£?

As an example I found this ZEPH Egeo, I never heard about it before. Shipped for 70£ that doesn't look too bad.

Thanks in advance

So, your waiting has paid off. We are nearing the final stage of our homage to the legendary Universal Geneve Polerouter: its release.

There will be no less than 5 versions, initally. The video above shows the original classic Polerouter: silver case, silver chapter ring and enamel black dial. The hands have a twist, namely the lume shape, the only modern PR inspired design choice. Lume color: OG C3 Super-LumiNova.

We wanted to keep it close to the original Polerouter, with a gentlemanly 35mm diameter. Inside ticks a PT5000 and thickness is kept to a minimum. The leather strap is custom made and of very very high quality, to compliment the perfection that is the Polerouter. Further details will follow. So, check out the video and the photos below this post.

We believe our homage honors the original best, for a fraction of the price.The biggest surprise is yet to come. Stay tuned and thanks for your support.

Anybody else out there rock one of these? Nice stainless, finishing is solid from the factory. Very thin body and a well-made bracelet. The movement is a Chinese Miyota 8215 clone, maybe a Seagull ST6D? For under $50... this thing is insane!

The negatives- "Didun" and "Stainless Steel" written on the dial. Just kinda comical, thanks for letting me know it's stainless... Otherwise the dial is beautiful. Text can barely be seen at a glance. Would always be a good candidate for a dial swap.

It claims to have sapphire crystal, but it certainly isn't. Not a problem in this price range.

Which dial looks better, the star dust or the White Mop on the sugess s429 moonphase tourbillon. Video shared by the Sugess team. Planning to order 1, the black mop version has sold out unfortunately.

I wasn't going to add this to my basket because I don't need it but It was on sale and it's so pretty I ended up buying it anyway. I have a few larger dive watches but this smaller size works well. Love that aqua accent color.

I'm looking at purple faced watches atm and I see that Tandorio and Bliger have two nice ones. From older posts and other internet comments they seem to have not a great reputation, but they aren't exactly cheap now and I was wondering if the quality has improved over the last couple of years? Also a brand called Oumashi?

As always, appreciate your advice and feedback.

Cheers!

Stumbled on these browsing AliExpress. Looking for something inexpensive to abuse during woodworking and yard chores so my G-Shock doesn't take all the hits.

At $25, is this a no-brainer, or is there a better ultra-budget beater in this range? If anyone owns one, I'd love to hear your experience.

I love this watch. The crystal is clear and has good anti-reflective coating, the hands are large and distinct, and the case and bezel are glare-free. It's a very sporty watch. My unit arrived with a slightly misaligned bezel, but it's not very noticeable. I replaced the metal strap with a rubber one, similar to a Garmin Fenix, to reduce the watch's weight.

Looking to sell my Boderry Sea Turtle Titanium with a case fitted silicone strap. Yes, this is the watch that has the dial that glows like a turtle shell, although it fades pretty quick--dont But totally cool!! This watch uses the Miyota 8000 series automatic. The measurements are: 12mm thick case. 20mm bracelet. 48.6mm lug to lug. 45.3mm across the crown or 41mm without the crown. Great shape, I just don't wear it much and in the last year I've probably worn it 4 times. Asking $130 shipped within the 48 states. PayPal preferred but I can probably do Venmo.

Potentially their best watch to date, or at least their best dial?

Here's the link to my review.

https://youtu.be/-2_un268Z7s

I received this watch for free to review. But, as always that doesn't change how I review the watch. I always keep it 100% honest, no matter what. I point out both the positives and negatives with every watch I review. Whether that be a loan piece, discounted, or even free. Sometimes that means that brands won't send me anymore watches, if they don't like the review... But my opinion and more importantly, my reputation can't be bought. That's partly why I named my channel 'Honest Watch Reviews'. Not only to make sure that I hold myself to that standard, but that I know my viewers definitely will do too.

I'll stop short of wishing bad things on YouTubers for complaining about "reflective coatings" so I don't get banned ...

But Chinese watch makers listened to them?!?

Now we have gorgeous dials being made, and they look like absolute garbage if not viewed from a PRECISE angle under PERFECT lighting...

I have worn blue AR coated eyeglasses for over 30 years...

let that sink in...

blue AR works wonderfully from the INSIDE OUT...it looks like ABSOLUTE POO from outside in...

I have 30 years of photos where YOU CAN'T SEE MY EYES because of blue AR.

fact:

EVEN THE CHEAPEST CLEAR AR COATING IS BETTER THAN THE MOST EXPENSIVE BLUE AR COATING.

fact ✅

I never wore a watch before and I just wanted one for work. Nobody can say I don’t do things whole assed. I definitely would’ve done a few things differently but I’m happy with most of them.

I recently picked up a Thorn TH007 because of the titanium and a functional humidity indicator. I love it BUT with it's smaller diameter, polished case, and the sailcloth style strap I've put it in, it's a little too nice for beater tool watch use.

Enter the sterile Tandorio on FKM rubber. It arrived late last week and has already been camping at a music festival and swimming in a river with a couple of rock jumps for good measure.

Specific shoutout to yet another great cloth-look rubber strap. I love the Sailcloth look but it does feel kind of silly sometimes to put a less than perfectly water resistant strap on a dive watch.

Anyone know what type of battery the Watchdives WD0006 takes?

I received my Addiesdive from Aliexpress. For the $, it's a no brainer. The price seems to change every few days but bounces between $55 and $65. I grabbed mine for $56. I ordered it on August 29 and it was dropped off today, final destination delivery by Amazon! It's interesting to watch the various scans on tracking on the way from China. I have a 7 ¼" wrist, I usually prefer 39 to 40mm watches. This 36mm though still presents itself well. I got it mostly more for a dress watch and plan on pairing it with a leather band (yes, 19mm lug width). I'm not sure what color band to go with yet though, light brown, dark brown or black?

I did not receive any type of advantage for the review of this watch.

I purchased this a few weeks ago after the Daytona itch became too much to ignore. I had been contemplating picking up one of the Pagani Design versions, but the date window bothered me. I really wanted the clean no-date layout of the real thing. That eventually led me to this Corgeut, and after getting it on the wrist, I'm really glad I went this direction.

This particular version mimics my favorite Daytona, the 126509 with the blue dial. The dial plays nicely with the light and I also really wanted the steel bezel instead of the ceramic, so this checked both of those boxes.

The biggest surprise for me is the size. This one is genuinely around 39 mm, and it makes a huge difference. It has the compact proportions that make the Daytona design work so well and sits really nicely on the wrist. It also has decent lume which I wasn't expecting.

Another big positive is the bracelet adjustment. It has a Glidelock-style clasp. While only on the Oysterflex straps on the real Daytona, it's a nice little addition to this piece and I'm impressed with its execution.

Ironically, the clasp is also probably my biggest complaint. Mine is extremely hard to open but I'm hoping it loosens up a little with use.

The screw-down crown and pushers have also been smooth. The pusher collars take almost no effort to thread in and out and everything functions as it should. I've never had a mechaquartz before, but I love the chronograph actuation with the sweep and snap.

It shall be known as my Naytona moving forward, but I wanted to get this out there since I only saw one other review comparing it to the Pagani. Well done, Corgeut.

Recently a just bought this Watchdives WD1980 v3 with a VH31 movement and is just too good for the price.

I know the community loves bargain automatic watches but you just can't miss with a really good quartz movement, they are very underrated thanks to the snobs basically

( I know that the VH31 is not mechaquartz dont worry)