Impressions of Orient Star GMT--Model DJ00001B

Do you remember when travel used to be fun?







It's not so long ago when people used to get dressed up to fly; back in the 1960s, my dad worked as an engineer at the University of Chicago, working on the old Surveyor project for NASA. He had to travel (by air!) a few times a year, to California and Texas. The only time I ever saw him wear a coat and tie was when he was off to the airport.



I think this is one of the reasons I like GMTs so much; they're cool, in a retro, let's-put-on-a-pith-helmet sort of way. Naturally, like watches themselves, nobody really needs a GMT, or a dual-time-zone timepiece. You can probably download an app on your smartphone that gives you the time, as well as the weather, in Upper Volta--if Upper Volta still exists, and I'm not sure that it does. I just got in last week the new Orient Star GMT, model number DJ00001B, and it's the bomb.





Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm a big fan of Orient watches--I went so far as to call Orient the Best Watch Company in the World, when I reviewed the Excursionist, which is also a GMT. But that's where the similarities end--the OS is a totally different beast.



Orient Star is the mid-range of Orient's lineup. The base line, just called Orient, is almost absurdly inexpensive, dripping with value, and collected around the world. Orient Star is more expensive, but still reasonably priced, especially when compared to many Swiss brands. The top of the line, which I think is called Royal Orient, is so far out of my price range I don't give them much thought.



The OS GMT is a good sized piece, about 44mm across, and about 13mm or so tall on the wrist. The bracelet is about 21mm, again showing Orient's disdain for aftermarket changeouts (you could probably squeeze a 22mm leather or rubber between the lugs.) Its all stainless, natch, and claims a water resistance of 100 meters. The case is very well made:











But the big story here is really the dial--on this model it's a sunray black; there's a white model available as well, designated DJ00002W. I choose the black because I figured it would be more legible:















The dial's busy, but not overly complicated. On the cannon pinion is the standard hours-minutes-seconds hand, as well as the long red GMT hand. The date window's at the three, and arcing from 12 back to 10 is the power reserve indicator, which stands off the dial like a 1/6 size Berlin Wall. The GMT hand can point at two different 24 hour indices, a very small one inside the hour markers, and a larger one on the outer flange, which is rotatable. The GMT works fine with the outer flange, BTW, but not so well with the inner indices, some of which are absent due to the date aperture frame as well as by the PR sweep. The dial is very deep:







It's covered with a sapphire crystal. The lume is decent, but modest. It easily passes the Conjurer quick-glance-in-a-dark-car test, but it doesn't last all night, either.







Flipping the OS over, we see another crystal (probably mineral) that shows off the delightfully decorated movement:







While the perlage and Geneva stripes aren't as good as you'd find on, say, a Top Grade ETA, but its much nicer and more convincingly expensive-looking than a lot of the Chinese movements you see.



The movement itself is a new one for Orient, called the 40P50, it's got 22 jewels, and like many of the newer Orient production, actually handwinds and hacks. The winding crown (non-screw-down, unfortunately, and located surprisingly at the two o'clock position) operates as smoothly and winds and sets as elegantly as an ETA. The other crown, paradoxically a screw-down, located at the four o'clock position, is to rotate the inner flange 24 hour dial. The screw-down is pretty nice, in that you can set another time zone (including for half-hour time zones) and them screw it down, making it immobile. The winding crown obviously sets the time at the second click, the first click reserved for the date and GMT adjustment. The GMT hand also works the same as an ETA 2893-2, where it automatically jumps to the precise time, on a 24 hour scale, as where the hour hand is set. The power reserve is somewhere north of 40 hours. Accuracy is about +7 seconds a day--which ain't bad, but it's not as good as the New M-Force diver. After wearing it nonstop for seven days I had to hack the seconds after about day five, because the watch was nearing the point of being fast where it bothers me, anal that I am in such things.



The bracelet is nice, and, a big plus over the M-Force, it uses regular old friction pins, meaning it probably won't fall off your wrist. It appears to be a five row, but they're all welded together. At 21mm, it's nearly too small for the head of the watch--a 22mm would have been more visually pleasing. The endlinks are solid, and the clasp, a single foldover, is nicely machined and well made:







The packaging the OS comes in is very nice, in a large black padded box--which is good, since Orient USA forgot to put any foam or peanuts in the shipping box.



Wearing the OS is fantastic. It feels and looks like a high-end, Swiss luxury piece. The detailing and finish is first class--I've seen Hamiltons that aren't as well made as this watch. At 44mm, it's a good size for me and my girly wrists:











And, like all good luxury items, it's not pretentious or in-your-face. It doesn't overdo it. Another plus, it doesn't ape another, more expensive, brand.



Pricewise, the MSRP for the OS GMT is around $1200 at the Japan websites, and $980 at Orient USA. Now, I've had some conversations with some other collectors about the fact that we Yankees can order just about anything from OUSA for half MSRP--these guys have a good point that they think that Orient USA is devaluing the brand. I respect this point of view, and understand it, but not enough not to order it, for just shy of five bills, from OUSA.



So, is the GMT worth the money? At five hundred bucks, absolutely--although this is a pretty large amount of jack to spend on an Orient--even an Orient Star. At this price, you're getting pretty close to a Steinhart GMT with a 2893 in it. But, like other Orient autos, you're getting something that's pretty damn close to a true manufacture watch, one where the company that puts its name on the dial also builds the movement. Is the GMT worth the full MSRP? I think it is, although I probably wouldn't have bought it at that price, personally.



What you're getting is a made-in-Japan watch, a real manufacture piece, that's as good as most of the Swiss out there--at least, the Swiss stuff that a working stiff can afford. A superb watch, and I give it a highly recommended buy.

Splendiferous write up Conjie, enjoyed that very much, thanks

Nice review. The only Orient I've owned was a Mako but even that was a great watch, and crazy value. At US$500 this GMT looks like great value too.

I'll be completely honest. I have had a problem with Orient watches. It's completely bull shit...I just don't want the word Orient on a watch.
But...I said but....your review has me changing my mind.

TickTocker wrote:Splendiferous write up Conjie, enjoyed that very much, thanks

Thanks, TT! "Conjie." I like that.

jason_recliner wrote:Nice review. The only Orient I've owned was a Mako but even that was a great watch, and crazy value. At US$500 this GMT looks like great value too.

Thanks, jason. Interestingly, I owned a Mako for awhile, and when I reviewed it, I compared it to the Invicta Prodiver, astonishingly with the Prodiver coming out ahead. Beating both hands down, for just a few more bucks, was the Seiko Monster, which doesn't suck at all.

Bigjimzlll wrote:I'll be completely honest. I have had a problem with Orient watches. It's completely bull shit...I just don't want the word Orient on a watch.
But...I said but....your review has me changing my mind.

Thanks, Bigjim, that means a lot. I'm starting to think that maybe I ought to ask Orient Japan for some free shit, like a hat or something.

Becareful if they send you any condoms...I hear they may be a touch small

Bigjimzlll wrote:Becareful if they send you any condoms...I hear they may be a touch small

Okay by me, Jim. You know what they say about guys with small wrists...

Real pleased that you are happy with the OS. Also you did good on the price. Great review! BTW, I still wear a Piss Helmut!

Nice watch. I have been looking at a few OS lately.For the price I think that you can't go wrong. I know you had problems with your bracelet on an Orient would you recommend the couple dollars more for the OS?

oceanaut wrote:Nice watch. I have been looking at a few OS lately.For the price I think that you can't go wrong. I know you had problems with your bracelet on an Orient would you recommend the couple dollars more for the OS?

A very good question, oceanaut. Of the Orients I've owned, the only one I had a real problem with in terms of the bracelet was the M-Force diver, which I've posted about here. That watch had an insipid pin-and-collar system in the bracelet, much like the Seiko Monster--the big difference being, the Orient's didn't work, and I've heard from several collectors saying the same thing, that the pins will start out of the bracelet links, threatening a failure.



I'd have to say, however, from a quality standpoint, the bracelets are the most problematic part of Orients collection. They can range from cheap, tinny, and low quality (as in the original Mako, although that bracelet wasn't prone to failure) up to the Orient World Timer, with an almost spectacularly good bracelet. The only other OS I've owned was the Air Diver, aka Revolver, and the bracelet on that one, while well made and finished, was simply too light and small for such a large dive watch--I took that bracelet off and replaced it with a Panatime rubber strap.



The M-Force diver is really the exception to the rule--all of the other Orients I've owned have had (at least) an adequite bracelet. I suppose that Orient tends to scale down the bracelets on most of their models to A) keep down weight (these are mostly designed for the Asian market, after all, and most Asian consumers don't want an anvil on their wrists and B) to save money.

I agree that Orient bracelets are often the weakest elements in the package. My current Orient is a 300 m diver. Incredible watch, I love it, but the bracelet is definitely the weak point. Not terrible, mind, just not up to the exceptionally high standard of the head. The 300 is a very heavy watch, so the bracelet needs to be thicker (not wider). A genuine 5 link design (e.g. Speedie Pro) would also be nice from an aesthetic POV.

I wear most of my divers on rubber so normally I wouldn't mind but the 300 is so damn heavy I haven't found a strap that can balance it out.

Seiko tends to skimp on bracelets (Monster excluded, which has a great bracelet for the price point) so perhaps it is not surprising that Orient bracelets are sub-par.

Thanks for the info Conjurer

A very nice looking watch and a great review with photos. Thanks for Your Efforts

Excellent review ! Thanks for the write up. I am really impressed by your opinion of this piece, especially since your the biggest ORIENT Fan I have ever seen. You would definitely be the one I would want advice from concerning ORIENT Watches. I have been on the fence with getting a piece made by them & the main reason is their bracelets (I see I'm not the only one) & the only place I know of getting one from other than second hand is from that site with Mark Kim, ORIENT USA as I believe it is named.

Do you have many dealings with his organization & what other sites are there that you may recommend? Thank you again for the great pics & all the interesting info you have in your write ups.

reed420 wrote: Excellent review ! Thanks for the write up. I am really impressed by your opinion of this piece, especially since your the biggest ORIENT Fan I have ever seen. You would definitely be the one I would want advice from concerning ORIENT Watches. I have been on the fence with getting a piece made by them & the main reason is their bracelets (I see I'm not the only one) & the only place I know of getting one from other than second hand is from that site with Mark Kim, ORIENT USA as I believe it is named.

Do you have many dealings with his organization & what other sites are there that you may recommend? Thank you again for the great pics & all the interesting info you have in your write ups.

Thanks for the kind words, reed (and from the others I failed to acknowledge up until now).

The only place I've purchased Orients new from has been Orient USA; they're shipping has, for the most part, been pretty fast (usually under a week via UPS, but they're located in California and I live in WA state, so this may vary for customers on, say, the East Coast.) The one time I had a question regarding shipping was when they had failed to send me an email with tracking, and I called their 800 number and left a message; Kim called me back within ten minutes and apolgized, and immediated sent me the email with the tracking info. I've never had a repair issue with OUSA, thank god, but I've heard their after-sale service is OK.

The fact is, if you live in the US, and you like OUSA's product selection, it's really a no-brainer ordering from them. OUSA's selection is rather limited (but growing quickly) and centers mainly on the standard Orient line, with the OS's being their high-end, but these pieces are very limited. When ordering from them, make sure you check out the coupon codes that are embedded in the videos included with each selection, which will cut the list MSRP in half. There are several Japan sites that sell the entire line of Orients, including the ruinously expensive Royal Orients and JDM models that OUSA hasn't (yet) gotten into stock. These sites generally discount, but nowhere near as heavily as OUSA, and the Japanese MSRPs seem to be about 10-20% higher than OUSA. I've never ordered from these sites, so I can't recommend them either way.

What I learned about Orient I owe to a few very experienced collectors, including Yeoman, who has an excellent blog and is located in the Philippines, I think, as well as Kew (Nathan) and Annzac (Tony) who are very active posters at WUS and BDWF. I've purchase a couple of OS's from Kew, who lives in Australia, which were fine transactions. All three of these guys are big boosters of Orient, and are extremely forthcoming with information (and pictures, if needed) for new collectors.

Finally, the bracelets on the Orients I've purchased have been OK for the most part with the exception of the M-Force diver, which is a stunningly good watch head mounted on the worst piece of shit bracelet I've encountered (the pin-and-collar system holding the links together repeatedly failed on me, and apparently, on others as well. It prompted me to post about it, here as well as at a couple of other forums I belong to.) Other bracelets have been either just OK or pretty good, like the one on the OS GMT.

I've been asked by a member for an update concerning this watch. While it's not on my wrist everyday now, it's still in heavy rotation (I was wearing it last night, actually.) There was some question about it's actual size, and yesterday I finally got a pair of calipers at the hardware store and measured it; because of the placement of the crowns and the crown protector inbetween them, it's impossible to get a true 10-4 measurement. However, 9-3 measuring shows that it is, indeed, 44mm, and around 45.5mm including a crown. However, if you were to except the crown protector, it would be closer to 41mm, which is what Orient Japan lists it at. At any rate, it still wears, like I said in the OP, like a 42mm.

In regards to the performance, the GMT has been running at about +5 seconds a day, but I haven't been monitoring it particularly closely. I stated in the OP it was running +7, which I monitored pretty closely for that measurement. Like my M-Force diver, the GMT likes to be fully wound to keep it accurate. Taking it off overnight makes for most of the +5/+7 second deviation (when off the wrist, I put my watches either into a winder or put 'em face up on my nightstand to wear in the morning.) While on the wrist, measuring accuracy from the morning to later at night, neither watch gains much. Another interesting thing of note is the GMT hand. I've owned a Debaufre GMT that used an ETA 2893-2, which is probably the gold standard for a non-Rolex GMT movement. The Debaufre exhibited slop in the GMT hand, so that, on the hour, it was slightly off by perhaps a degree or two from where it should be on the GMT scale. Some times of the day it was right on, sometimes it was a little off. It was still possible to read the second time zone with ease, but the slop was there. The Orient has no slop--the GMT hand is dead on, every time I look at it. In this regard, at least, the Orient 40P50 movement is superior to the ETA.

The member who asked for the update lives overseas and was unable to take advantage of the OrientUSA's services, particularly, the almost-stupid coupon code that effectively slashes the MSRP in half. He was looking at the Japanese websites, which have this model selling for around $800 US. Now, eight bills is a lot of money, especially these days; you can get, say, a Steinhart GMT for a lot less; for $800, you can probably find Hamilton GMTs all day on discount. I don't like to spend other member's money for them, but I think, even at $800-900, the GMT is worth the money.

The quality of the workmanship, the movement, and the overall value of the OS is still amazing, and easily beats the lower-tier Swiss GMTs that are out there.

Great watch John, and great review... about the crystal, I read somewhere that OS is using Seiko's hardlex (which is a big plus in my book) I'm surprised about the lume , was under the impression that OS was upgrading to LumiBrite..

That is one beautiful Orient in my books.

I have the OS GMT in white dial. It is a very nice watch that keeps darn good time. Even tho it carries some size, it sits down on the wrist and the lugs curve enough to easily accomodate even my girlie wrists. The bracelet is decent quality and the entire set up is quite comfortable. My only gripe derives from my choice of the white dial - while it is stunning with the sunrays, applied elements, and varying depths of the dial, it can be a bit hard to read the hour & minute hands in some lighting and at many angles than most white dial watches I have had. My first impression was, "I should have picked the black dial!!" Orient even threw in a free base model with power reserve. Unfortunately that one didn't work right out of the box, but I couldn't complain - it was free!

Definite bang for the buck. As I recall, with a promo code or something, mine cost about $700.

eddiea wrote:Great watch John, and great review... about the crystal, I read somewhere that OS is using Seiko's hardlex (which is a big plus in my book) I'm surprised about the lume , was under the impression that OS was upgrading to LumiBrite..

Thanks, eddie, for the kind words (and I apologize for not noticing them up until now). As far as I can tell, OS is using only sapphire on the front crystals, with mineral on the casebacks. I assume that they're also using LumaBrite, too, but on this particular model, with the skeletonized hands, there's not really enough surface area on the hands to glow for a real long time.

Kahuna74 wrote:That is one beautiful Orient in my books.

Thanks, Kahuna!

Don Barzini wrote:I have the OS GMT in white dial. It is a very nice watch that keeps darn good time. Even tho it carries some size, it sits down on the wrist and the lugs curve enough to easily accomodate even my girlie wrists. The bracelet is decent quality and the entire set up is quite comfortable. My only gripe derives from my choice of the white dial - while it is stunning with the sunrays, applied elements, and varying depths of the dial, it can be a bit hard to read the hour & minute hands in some lighting and at many angles than most white dial watches I have had. My first impression was, "I should have picked the black dial!!" Orient even threw in a free base model with power reserve. Unfortunately that one didn't work right out of the box, but I couldn't complain - it was free!

Definite bang for the buck. As I recall, with a promo code or something, mine cost about $700.

I was tempted by the white dial too, Don, but decided on the black because I figured it would be more legible.

Another thing I should point out is that Orient USA is backing off of their 50% coupon codes; apparently, Orient Japan leaned on them regarding this and they no longer offer it as a standard pricing deal. Somebody at WUS posted about them doing a monthly offer through some review website, but the code doesn't work on the Orient Star models they sell. Also, they jacked up the MSRP, Invicta-like, to around $1100, with a 30% standard discount, which makes it sell for at least $200 more than I paid for it.

Here is an older pic of the white dial for comparison. It's nice and all, but doesn't have the presence of the black dial.

Excellent read. Thanks for the education.