Month: May 2022

Categories
Merkur

Merkur Pierre Paulin Panda Style Watch Review

Merkur Pierre Paulin

Merkur, which is a young Chinese watch brand, now has owned a great reputation abroad. I usually visited their website and found that many people bought their watches, at the same time they left good feedback. About their sales store on aliexpress, they have an almost ninety-eight percent of positive feedback, a lot of other Chinese brands can not achieve such a high rate. Each watch Merkur has produced has their own features that make them different from other Chinese watches, I like them so much, I want to choose one at least from each of their series, now this Pierre Paulin is the second watch I bought from Merkur.

Merkur Pierre Paulin Stainless Steel Case
Merkur Pierre Paulin Chrono

The watch I bought from Merkur watch company is a sub-brand, which has a name “Pierre Paulin”. I like this watch because it shows the elegance to the maximum, but keeps a little sporty feature and retro flavor. The watch is a chronograph model, the chronograph function works, it uses a Sea-gull TY2901 movement that offers a working chrono. You can push the two buttons on the case to operate the chronograph, when the button at 2 o’clock is pressed down, the central silver second hand will move, if you want to stop the second, press down this button again. When the button at 4 o’clock is pushed, the central second-chronograph hand will be reset to zero, which is precisely at 12 o’clock on the big dial.

Merkur Pierre Paulin White Dial

I like its white dial, the two black small dials like the two eyes of a Panda, I remember Rolex also has the Panda Daytona, just like this design. Two small dials, one is for small seconds display at 9 o’clock, the 30-minute chronograph counter is positioned at 3 o’clock. The dial has a high readability because it only uses white and black color, all hands and hour markers are in silver tone. The printings of “PIERRE PAULIN” indicates the designer name of the watch. The panda dial has white tachymetre scales on the outermost circle in black.

Merkur Pierre Paulin Movement

The Merkur Pierre Paulin is equipped with a Sea-gull TY2901 movement, it is hand-winding and looks like a copy of the Venus 75 movement. Usually this movement is used by most Chinese brand watches that has a chrono feature but with very reasonable prices. The movement has 21 rubines and a frequency of 21,600 times per hour. The Sea-gull TY2901 is a perfect match for this retro-style Pierre Paulin Panda watch. Besides the manual winding movement and panda dial, the third retro element on the watch is shown through its arched acrylic face.

Merkur White Wrist Shot

The watch has a black leather band that features fabric textures and white stitching. For this white panda dial version, Merkur also offers one stainless steel bracelet option.

Categories
Heimdallr

Heimdallr MarineMaster Bronze Diver’s Watch Review

Heimdallr SDBX

Diver’s watches can always attract my attention due to their unique design features, they have been very popular in recent ten years, many people are willing to get a diver’s watch when they are going to buy their first watch. Almost each Swiss brand has their own diver’s watch product line, and many micro brands in China also make diving watches, but lots of them are homages of Swiss watches. Heimdallr is one of these Chinese micro brands that provide custom-made watches, other brands like Heimdallr that are doing the same job include Proxima, San Martin, Steeldive, etc., some of them really make good quality homage watches at very reasonable prices, I like the watches made by Heimdallr, because it really offers watch fans a lot of diver’s watches in different styles, on Heimdallr’s official store, you can also find a lot of watch bands in various styles, which gives the wearer a lot of fun to play with the watch.

Heimdallr Bronze Watch
Heimdallr Crystal Bezel

The Heimdallr watch is made with bronze material, it is the first bronze watch I bought, looks great, some of my friends said that the bronze is easily oxidized, and the watch will look ugly then, that’s right, but you can use ketchup to refurbish, very convenient. The watch is a MarineMaster model from Heimdallr, it is absolutely made for divers, on its black dial, Heimdallr saying “PROFESSIONAL 300m”, does it mean the watch for professional diving and 300m waterproof? I do not think so, few Chinese watches can be water resistant to 300 meters, especially for such a micro brand, this is a great depth under water, I do not think that this Heimdallr watch has passed through the 300m waterproof test. However, the watch is completely water resistant to 10m, you can wear it when swimming.

Heimdallr Bronze Crown

The bronze case is measured to be about 44mm in diameter and 15.5mm in thickness, it is brushed. Seeing from the side, the case has a graceful arc, the middle case is forged one-piece bronze with screw-down bronze bezel that features a black insert, the color of bezel markers is the same as bronze.

Heimdallr Black Dial

The dial has every essential detail that makes it a perfect diver’s watch. First, the shark logo you see under 12 o’clock marker has a special meaning to Heimdallr, which means that this brand mainly produces diver’s watches. Second, every hour marker is very big and has white luminous material that looks a little cyan, when at night or in dark conditions, the dial has a super lume light that looks green, it seems like that all diver’s watches made by middle or high-end micro brands in China focus on the usage of superlume on the dial. Both hour hand and minute hand are so special to me, they seem to be wider than the hands of other diving watches I have, so more super lume can be applied on the hands, together with the big hour markers, they all enhance the readability of the dial when at night.

Heimdallr Bronze Case Back
Heimdallr Engraving on Buckle

The Heimdallr MarineMaster Bronze watch is equipped with a Japan NH35 automatic movement, its inaccuracy is supposed to be 10 seconds each day, well, the watch still works good since I got it three weeks ago, I have to admit that the watches in my collection that use Japanese movements have fewer issues. The watch has a black rubber band with a bronze pin buckle, it also looks very good on a brown leather strap, if you are interested in this watch and want to know more about this Chinese brand, please contact me.

Heimdallr Bronze Watch Lume
Categories
Guanqin

Guanqin Black Water Ghost Quartz Watch Review

Guanqin Black Sub in Box

This watch from Guanqin is a very cheap quartz watch but has a charming outlook.

I seldom introduced quartz watches before, in most cases, I do not think a quartz watch is a real watch, it is like a toy, but sometimes a quartz watch can save you a lot of troubles, you do not need to wind the watch every day, so you won’t find the watch has stopped when waking up in the morning, A quartz watch is also much thinner than an automatic watch, so it gives a better wearing comfort. By the way, a quartz watch is more accurate, you do not need to correct the inaccuracy once in a while.

The Guanqin watch is a very practical quartz watch with a good looking, I think everyone who love a diving-style watch will like this watch too, its outlook is very similar to black Submariner 116610LN, but I can not say it is completely a homage watch of black sub. Its bezel, dial and bracelet have different design from that of Submariner.

Guanqin Leather Box
Guanqin Black Bezel

This Guanqin watch has a very cheap price, on their official website, it is sold at less than 30 USD. For such a kind of quartz watch that is made with 316L stainless steel, the price is very affordable, but that does not mean its quality is very low, for me, the quality is acceptable, worth the money I paid. The case has a diameter of 40mm and is measured to be only 9mm in thickness, you noticed two different finish on the case, just like its bracelet, the polishing finish on lugs and crown guards, while the other part of the case is brushed, on the stainless steel bracelet, the middle links are polished, which is highly contrast with the brushed links on both sides, I can not imagine that Guangqin will focus on the finish of the case and bracelet even they sell the watch at a very low price, just to give the wearer a better experience.

Guanqin Bag
Guanqin Submariner SS Bracelet

The black bezel is not ceramic made, the white pearl set at 12 o’clock is not luminous, I think these are two main shortcomings of this watch, I will like it more if Guanqin can use a lume pearl like the black sub on the bezel. Black dial is under protection of a mineral crystal face, it is ok for me, I think a sapphire crystal is just a waste for this kind of quartz watch. Every hour marker and central hands are applied with white luminous material, the green lume light I see from the dial surprises me, it is very strong. The date window opened at 3 o’clock has a white background, very easy to read through the magnifier on the crystal, you can adjust the date by operating the crown.

Guanqin Black Sub with Black Leather Strap

Anyway, I like this Guanqin watch even though it uses a quartz movement, I can not imagine how high quality a watch will be if you only pay less than 30 USD to get it, I am very satisfied with the finish, it is one of my most favorite quartz watch that features a mechanical outlook. Guanqin also offers green, blue and two tone styles for this watch.

Guanqin Black Sub Wrist Shot
Categories
CIGA Design

CIGA Design Z Series DLC Skeleton Watch Review

CIGA Design PVD Black Watch with Box

This is my second CIGA Design watch I received several days ago, it looks very cool and is my most favorite tonneau-shaped Chinese watch.

The history of CIGA Design is very young, but this brand has made a lot of amazing models which we are very pround of, some CIGA Design watches even received important awards from abroad, many people are talking this Chinese brand now. I like CIGA Design, this is the second watch I bought from them, the first one is the X Series Gorilla model. This CIGA Design watch has a full black outlook, I love it, the design of its case and dial is a highlight of the entire watch. I think every one who likes sports style watches will choose it.

CIGA Design PVD Black
CIGA Design Box

The case is made with 316L stainless steel, its surface has a thick DLC black coating, which not only increases the hardness of the case, but also enhances its corrosion resistance. The case has a width of 40.8mm, not including the crown, its height is 48mm, case thickness is 12.3mm, the DLC coating is thick and black color can last a long time, so that the entire watch can keep a cool black outlook for a long time.

CIGA Design Skeleton Dial

The arc-shaped crystal is sapphire that is highly scratch-resistant and is perfectly installed. Under the sapphire crystal, it is the skeleton dial, where you can the golden balance wheel and gears and other machine parts, it looks like skeleton is a big feature of al. most all popular CIGA Design watches. The red color usage on central hands makes the dial more readable. There are white hour markers and minutes scales on the beveled inner bezel, together with the skeletonized dial structure, they give the entire dial a three-dimensional visual effect.

CIGA Design See-through Case Back

CIGA Design claims that they use a Sea-gull automatic movement in this watch, I am not sure if they use a real Sea-gull, I do not know the model of the movement, maybe it is a basic Sea-gull movement, which has a beating frequency of 21,600 times per hour and 40-hour power reserve, well, maybe the watch can not work 40 hours continuously after being fully winded, I tested it, about 32 hours, that’s ok, I suggest you wind it every morning.

CIGA Design Black Watch in Box

The CIGA Design watch has a black rubber band, which feels very soft, the rubber band also suitable to wear in hot summer, it does not have a bad smell and also dust proof. By the way, the watch comes with one pair of black leather straps, which is free. Besides this DLC black version, CIGA Design also offers three stainless steel models with rubber straps in different colors, there are black, red and blue.

CIGA Design Watch Wrist Shot
CIGA Design Rubber Strap
CIGA Design Pin Buckle
Categories
Binger

Binger “Moon Phase” Mesh Bracelet Watch Review

Binger Tourbillon in Box

I like this Binger watch, I bought it one week ago, the watch has a very good finish on case and bracelet, which looks much better than that of other Chinese watches at same price level.

Binger Tourbillon Blue Mesh Bracelet

You may know little about Binger, I gave a brief introduction of it in my another post at https://www.bobswatchstore.com/2022/04/06/binger-double-tourbillon-moon-phase-watch-review/. The Binger watch I am going to review today, three things I need to explain, first, it does not have date function, the black numbers from 1 to 31 you see on the dial, they are just decoration, there is no window or a small hand to show current date. Second, about the moon phase, it is fake, actually it is a day and night indicator, which rotate automatically. Third, on the lower blue part of the dial, there is a big opening window, it is not a tourbillon decice, so do not believe the word “TOURBILLON” on its left.

Binger Tourbillon Date
Binger Tourbillon Blue Mesh

It is a fake tourbillon with false moon phase, whatever, that does not mean it is not a good watch, actually all watches made by Binger have a high quality, including this one, Binger also has their own designs, those homage brands can not be compared with Binger.

Binger Tourbillon Watch
Binger Tourbillon Movement

The Binger has a silver case that is made with 316L stainless steel and is fully polished, the case has a diameter of 42mm and is measured to be 15mm in thickness, actually it is a bit thick for such a dress watch. I always think that Binger has two big advantages, their superior case finish and sapphire crystal. Its case is really manufactured so well when I received the watch, I owned a lot of Chinese watches, only Binger’s case finish never let me disappointed. The round case of this Binger is polished so smooth like a mirror, I do care about the finish more than the function of a watch, this Binger gives me a very good impression at first glance. The sapphire crystal has always been a big selling point since the establishment of Binger, at the earliest stage of development, Binger advertised their watches with saying of the hardest and highly scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, and it succeeded. The crystal of this Binger is a domed sapphire with great transparency.

Binger Blue Tourbillon Wrist Shot

The dial has an unique design, which is divided into two parts by a silver metal with numbers 1-31. The upper part is silver with a small dial to display 24 hours and the day/night, it looks like an eye. The 24-hour display works automatically and does not need you to adjust, so does the day/night indicator. The lower part of the dial has a beautiful blue color, it has a big opending window to show you a working balance wheel that has its two ends fixed on the dial by screws, so that it can work stable and the movement can offer a more accurate time. The hands and hour markers are cut so well and each gives me a strong three-dimensional sense, the perfect craftmanship of this Binger watch is shown through these small details.

The heart of the watch is beaten by a Chinese automatic movement that is in golden color, you can see the beautiful decoration on movement auto rotor through the crystal back. This Chinese automatic movement is good and has a low cost, by the way, its inaccuracy is within my acceptable range, which is about 15 to 30 seconds faster each day. The watch features a mesh stainless steel bracelet, but it has black and brown leather stap options, the dial also has several choices. Binger never opened a store and they only sell watches online.