Following on from the posh watch thread, I’ve been eyeing up an Orient watch. It’s neither expensive or overly extravagant. It is however lovely and just about cheap enough to be an impulse purchase.

But before I do, anyone know anything about the brand? From what I can work out they’re Japanese (good), owned by Seiko (also good) and use fair standard inhouse movements (also fine). Any thing I should worry about before I part with my cash?

They seem pretty well received by the watch blogs, especially considering the price.
I wanted a diver and bought the Seiko SKX-007 in preference to the Orient but some of their more subtle designs are cool…

Worn and Wound – Orient reviews

This is nice:

Which Orient are you thinking of?

I’ve got 3, a mk1 Bambino, a blue Ray on the steel bracelet and a yobokies modded Flight as well as having a Defender on back order with long island watches which is where I got the Bambino from. The Ray I got from creation watches.

As Beanum says, they’re one of the few entry level automatic brands which get consistently good reviews even on blogs etc which usually review much higher priced watches. They’ve also got a strong history, better than a lot of brands which sell on vague notions of heritage etc. They’re mostly all in-house movements and at one point I Nelson’s they were even making their own oil for the mechanism etc.

I’ve always found mine to be reliable, accurate and with good power reserves. The only weak points are the straps and this is only in relation to the more expensive watches they’re generally put up against. The boxes etc are good if you’re buying as a present and in general they look a lot more expensive than they are.

I have an Orient Ray – and a bunch of Seiko sk older/pepsi/etc.
For the last 2 years on so its the only one I wear – well made and surprisingly accurate – just like the reviews way way better than the Seiko out of the box.
Best vfm auto watches available.

Sod it, I’ve bought it. If it’s nice I’ll post pics up, if it’s not I’ll send it back to amazon!

Damn it man, which one?!

This one Ivan, cheap, auto and I’ve not got an all black watch. Limited pics so it may be horrible in the hand, we’ll see when it arrives.

I reckon you’ll be pleased with it in the flesh, there’s a couple of videos of it online which give you a clearer idea of what it actually looks like.

Yeah, I saw one YouTube vid and that swung it for me. Amazon have a very good returns policy so for that much I was prepared to take a punt as it’s easy enough to take back.