Guanqin Watch Review

8/6/2018 4 Comments

Guanqin Automatic Watch Review - Nomos Homage for $58

Today, we will take a peak at a watch from Gearbest, which is a wholesaler for many affordable watches, some horrible, some okay, and some great value propositions as well. The watch today is called the "Guanqin Nomos Lambda", which was made up, but really there is no actual name of this model.

Click Here To Purchase One from GearBest

Case

The Guanqin is housed in an all polished steel case with nice short teadrop style lugs and a very round case design to compliment them. The diameter comes in at 41MM and wears like one. The case thickness is around 13MM and this watch is also equipped with a genuine Sapphire crystal. The lug width is 20MM and suits the case fairly well. Our signed “G” crown is pull/push and I assume this watch has a water resistance of 3 ATM, which basically means...Stay away from water.

Dial and Hands

The slight matte white dial is very similiar to the Nomos watch it pays Homage too. The nice feature on this model is the large bauhaus style 35 hour power reserve indicator below the 12:00 position. As you wind the watch, the subdial hand will move to show your current power reserve. Long rectangle shaped blue hands do reach quite far out to the end of the dial and allow for a legible view. I do like the addition of the circular white date window inside the seconds subdial at 6:00 and feel it fits in with this Bauhaus style design.

Movement

This watch utilizes the Huangzhou B200 PTS automatic movement. I am actually surprised at the extent of finishing the rotor and movement has with striping and perlage. 22 Jewels, Hacking and hand wind capabilities are also packed into this asian mechanical movement. To be quite honest, myne is running around 8 seconds fast a day which is just perfect at this pricepoint of under $100!

Bracelet

The 20Mm Shark Mesh style adjustable bracelet is quite
comfortable to wear and simple to adjust. The buckle feels secure but the clasp is not signed as well as a more expensive watch, I will not complain at this super cheap pricepoint though!

Conclusion

Looking at what you actually get for $58 might have you thinking twice about how much you paid for your Swiss watch or Seiko. This watch gives you a lot for the money including Sapphire, Decent Bracelet, Power Reserve indicator, Decorated movement, Hacking, and hand winding. Need I say more? This is definitely something fun to add to the collection for a beater or everyday watch for work. It looks the part, and certainly feels the part. Thanks for reading!

4 Comments

Benny

10/3/2018 11:14:51 am

Hey thanks for the review. Ordered one of these so now want to know everything there is to know :-)
One thing I'm not so sure of is the Sapphire crystal. I hope it is sapphire, of course but this Lambda homage was tested by someone with a diamant meter and the result was negative. Still, maybe the tester wasn't using the proper tool (cheap ebay-style diament meter ...).

Timex

1/10/2019 11:47:58 pm

I don't know if people are kidding or they just don't have real good watches to compare, but when you hold one of this "chinese specials" and the real deal side by side, the quality differences are there. I'm not saying that Swiss watches prices are ethical but this "chinese specials" are not that awesome enough to stand the real deal, but sure they are very interesting considering its prices. Also it seems we like to play dumb when talking about any watch price and forget about heritage and innovation, you pay that, that has a price and for Horology purposes that really matters, and this "chinese specials" have zero value to horology. I think there is too much hype for this toys!.

Buddy Kaybay

2/7/2020 12:33:21 pm

You're not wrong about the side-by-side comparison, but to be honest, I believe that Horological Significance is a lie we tell ourselves to justify dropping several thousand dollars on a watch and still feel good about it. I tell myself the same lies when I buy expensive musical instruments. When I'm on stage nobody in the audience can hear the difference between $2000 snare drum and a $100 one, but I still want the $2000 one. :-)

Michael Kinder

1/12/2020 05:50:49 am

I bought a Guanqin Tourbillon watch, and it was a real flying tourbillon for not a lot of money that looked great and came in great packaging...

BUT... it's not that well built. The tourbillon movement jammed up after a few months and regularly gets stuck, and then free's itself again. But that kinda defeats the point of the movement.

The clasp is nice but sometimes popps out too. On top of this, when buying from AliExpress in anywhere but China there's no warranty, and they will ignore you if you try and message them when things go wrong. On top of that, the movement will be too complicated for 99% of general watch mechanics in the UK to fix, so if it breaks, it breaks and you've lost your money.

My advice would be to hold out/ save up for something more robust. It was great for a few months, but didn't stand the test of time.

YOUR CART