For Those Who Are Waiting
Ordered: 11/06, Shipped: 12/21, Received: 12/27 (US East Coast)
Initial Thoughts
I'll try to be as balanced as possible and not give into new toy syndrome. I'm not a rabid collector; this is only my second Chinese watch, the other being the San Martin SN0113W V2. I do have a Seiko SARX015 from 2014 and a vintage Girard-Perregaux dress watch from the 1970s. I have had borrowed wrist time with GS Snowflake, Rolex Milgauss, and Tudor Royal, so those would be practical benchmarks.
What I Like:
- It wears very well despite being on the 'smaller' side; its proportions feel better than my SN0113W V2, which is approximately the same size at 38 mm but manages to feel slightly smaller because of its larger bezel white space, convexity of the sapphire, and curve down of the lugs. It's still way smaller feeling than my 39.5 mm Seiko SARX015 but that's not really a bad thing, as the Seiko wears bigger than it should.
- I echo everyone else's impressions that the anti-reflective coating of the flat sapphire glass is superb
- The bracelet feels excellent, as expected from IXDAO's track record; on my 16.8 cm wrist, I took down two links on either side and one half-link. I could have taken off booth half-links but that would make summers difficult
- The inlaid MOP logo is actually pretty well executed. It gives the dial a bit of a hand-finished feel
- This is my first Miyota powered watch; it's really not that noisy of a rotor until you get it into its non-winding spin
What I Think Could Be Better:
- The iridescence and brightness of the MOP dial, while pretty to look at, takes away from absolute legibility (it's not illegible, far from it; just lower contrast than one would hope); those looking for a very legible dial should look to future permutations such as the upcoming enamel dialed versions
- The hairline brushing of the 316L stainless steel, while good, somehow feels a little flat because of the large real estate of the mid-case. It could benefit from a more defined hairline texture (thinking of the Royal Oaks I've seen) or more high polished chamfers and surfaces to create a greater sense of depth.
- The crown guard feels like an afterthought; and why is the blue film on the crown so hard to remove?
- The logo on the screw-down case back is not centered, pointing to tooling that isn't completely there yet
- I wish the fluted motif of the minute track was taller/deeper; there's room for it because the rehaut is deep.
- The finishing of the hands and indices is not to the level of true $6K+ watches (well, duh); hopefully I will be able to take a trip to CW's Dallas showroom within the year to compare it against a more practical benchmark for finishing quality
Overall, despite the evolutionary language from the E and derivation from elements of CW, the Warrior stands of its own two feet, and as IXDAO's first original design, that's a really good thing. If they release a more restrained dial (or if my entry for the design competition gets the green light), I would probably switch to a version with the more under the radar design, but I did want something slightly more bright this time around and I will likely daily wear it for the time being.
