Some months back when my existing every day wear watch had got terribly scratched in my workshop, I had to go out and buy a new one except; I realized that buying an everyday wear watch wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be.

I like my watch to be accurate and even if it is for everyday wear, it needs to be good looking too. There’s like a ton of watches out there that more or less meet the second criteria but very few that meets the first. This is kind of strange if you ask me. I mean, a watch should display the time and in my book, it should do so with a degree of accuracy or else, it does not qualify to be called a watch. Give or take 5 minutes a month is not accuracy. In 6 months the watch would be 30 minutes out. With that kind of time keeping I’d be a laughing stock in the neighbourhood and miss the train every time.

I always thought a quartz powered watch was accurate that is, until I a watch retailer told me the accuracy of quartz depends on the quartz within. The sub $100 Orient diver watches it seems are rarely accurate quartz or not.

A bit frustrated that my simple two-criterion search was not yielding results, I went to my favourite Orient watch dealer located mid-town. I already possess a couple of Orient high-end watches that I keep for party wear or when I need to impress someone. I thought maybe Orient had some ‘regular wear’ watches and decided to revisit the Orient watch store.

Browsing through the collection of Orient watches, I noticed some had an arresting red or yellow dial. These I was told, were the Orient Mako Automatic Diver watch and he removed a few from the display unit so I could get a better look at them. While at it, he also brought out a black dial Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner and kept it besides the Orient Mako Automatic Mens Watch - also with a black dial. I held my breath as I noticed the two were almost identical. In fact one could have easily passed for the other. The distinguishing feature was the price tag. The Orient Mako retails at around $300 whereas the Rolex I was told, was like $5,000!!!!
I am not sure what precisely made the Rolex so expensive. I mean the Orient Watch Company of Japan is a stickler for quality and they even make their own watch parts and assemble everything in-house. I know Orient has a fetish for quality and when it comes to accuracy, I’d say 5 seconds per month is pretty good.

Frankly, the Orient Mako Automatic is not a diver’s watch. It is rated for 200 meter depths which by the way is pretty deep. The Orient star automatic however will easily stand its own against the sea surf, a dive into a pool or even a high dive off a rock into a lake. That coupled with its accuracy, obvious good looks and scratch resistant sapphire crystal was a good enough ‘everyday’ wear watch for me.

The Orient Classic Automatic has a case diameter that is almost 4 cm across and large day-date display. Accuracy, quality, looks – it was all there. What more could a man ask?