What do you think of San Martin watch? A cheap homage made in China? Maybe this is the impression which San Martin watch gave to lots of you guys in the past, many people thought that such Chinese brands are cheap quality and always copy the designs of other watches in the development, this is a flawed view, at least not true for this brand, we know every watch brand in China liked to copy the designs in the beginning of their development, including San Martin, but now I see San Martin has their own designs on most watches, this is a great progress for San Martin, also for our Chinese watch industry. There are too many homage watches in China, we should not simply categorize it as an homage anymore, it is a good watch that occupies a higher-tier market position than those homage watches like Steeldive.
This is a watch most men will like, it is fully made with solid 316L stainless steel, the case is 39mm, not including the crown, this is a very proper size for men, not too big but also in line with most men’s need for stainless steel watches – big. I can clearly see two finishes on the case, brushing isare very obvious on the stainless steel bezel that is engraved with black 24-hour numbers, polishing is smooth on the edge of the case, the high-contrast effect can be found on the stainless steel bracelet. “SAN MARTIN” logo is engraved on the crown. For overall finish on the case, San Martin did not make compromise on the finish, which is much better than the homages at the same price level. The black bezel markers have a certain of engraving depth, but not too deep.
I like its dial, it is similar to the patterns of a desert. Does any Swiss watches use this texture on the dial? It will be great if this is an innovation for a Chinese watch. I chose the purple dial, they also have other colors like white, brown and green. Each hour marker and the brand logo are tridimensional, silver hour markers have white lume filling, unfortunately the GMT hand has the same lume color as the hour markers and hands, it will be a better visual effect and increase readability if they use a different lume color on the GMT hand. Those letterings including red “GMT”, white “AUTOMATIC” and “100m=330ft” stand a bit higher above the dial.
The watch can fit my hand perfectly and it has a clasp that offers adjustable space. It is powered by a NH34 automatic movement from Japan, now the watch gains about 12 seconds each day. Well, I like the dial texture and the bracelet is good to wear.
