Thursday, May 2, 2013

Orient Star Retrograde: High end at affordable price.....

Orient Star Classic Power Reserve Retrograde Automatic SDE00002B


That is a mouthful of a name...... Bought this in October 2011..... Orient Star is the high end entry level. The extremely high end of Orient is called Royal Star. The watch comes well packed. It has a black hard paper box with Orient Star wording and logo printing on it. 


Okay here you see the warranty and the watch manual booklet. Not the best that I have seen, pretty ordinary and like usual I can never be bothered with those. The inner padded box is nice and great to hold. It have a sense of luxury. 


Open the box, you will see a classical looking complication watch. Round shaped stainless steel case with anti-reflective coated convex sapphire crystal. The case is well polished with both mirror and satin finishing. It just give you a high class feeling. This watch is measuring 39.5mm without the crown and with thickness of 14.3mm.



This retrograde model comes in three styles: the black dial or the cream white dial in stainless steel case and bracelet, and a semi cream and rose gold dial in stainless steel and rose gold casing and bracelet. 
If you ask me what is the most attractive part of this watch; I would say it is the dial. The watch has a textured patterned dial. There are three sub-dials for power reserve, day and date respectively. What is the beauty is that each sub-dial has a different pattern. This is a great amount of details for a dial of a watch of this price range. Wait! I am learning how to take a macro picture of the dial without being affected by the reflection of the glass. 


I don't really quite like the hands design on this watch, I would not comment on it. However official Orient website has quite a lot to say about it. "The hour and minute hands have been cut in peak shape and feature different finishes on the two sides : matte and mirror finish. The design further enhances visibility."



The word retrograde literally means a return to the starting point. The day function of this watch is fitted with retrograde function. The unique mechanism makes the hand return to the starting point in an instant, from the Sunday to Monday position, when a week has elapsed.



The crown is signed with Orient Star logo engraving. I would think an orient logo emblem will be more elegance. The crown can be used to set the day, date and also time function. It can also be used to wind the watch. 


The stainless steel bracelet is a combination of polished and brushed parts. All links are solid and short, which make it very comfortable to wear. The clasp is a double deployment with Orient Star logo engraved. This watch may looks marvelous if pairing with a smooth black leather band.  



The watch comes with a display caseback using sapphire glass. It is powered by the 22 jewels Orient 40A50 automatic movement. This movement has a power reserve of approximately 40 hours, and is beating at 21,600 bph. It also has the hack and handwinding function. There is also the power reserve indicator. The movement has been well polished and equipped with a nice rotor. The rotor is elegant designed and is marked in gold with the wording and logo of Orient Star.



This retrograde is proudly made in Japan and has a water resistant of 100m. I think Orient Star web page has described this watch to perfection..."Engineered for the connoisseur of aesthetic simplicity........ This is a watch fit for diverse life settings, with substantial mechanisms lying behind its subtle, yet sophisticated appearance."

1 comment:

  1. I got mine 5 years ago, and it still looks almost like new, and still has a 40+ hour reserve. Still running very consistently. An incredible bargain for the $450 I paid at an on-line grey market retailer.

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