Orient Triton Watch Review (RA-AC0K04E10B) | Now I’ve Spotted It, I Can’t Stop Seeing It…
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It has taken me some time to come to terms with the tricky topic that is Orient's nomenclature. At the root of the issue is the fact Orient do not wish to explicitly name their watches for the Global market. Why, is unclear, but it seems intentional. Perhaps Orient sees these names as superfluous, with the reference number being perfectly adequate - "Who needs a 'Submariner' or a 'Speedmaster' when you have RA-AC0K04E10B!?". Or perhaps it's to avoid the risk of costly accidental trademark disputes.
Whatever the reason, not having a catchy name seems a little soulless to me - for example, the headline of Orient's global press release for this watch was "a diver design model with offset crown" - hardly inspirational. Worse still, was the closest Orient came to giving it a nickname - using the prefix "AC0K". Thankfully, the US/UK market stepped in, demanding a catchy moniker, they delved into the historical Orient references and found a discontinued model with a crown at 4 - "The Triton" - Perfect...until it wasn't. The original Triton had to be renamed to "Neptune" apparently due to a trademark issue. Confused? I was. So I guess for the purposes of this review, we'll just have to embrace AC0K and leave this silliness behind..
Differences
Rewinding a little bit, the original Orient Triton was a much-loved, great-value watch specifically designed for diving. However, Orient has gone to some lengths to highlight that this is not the case for the AC0K. The prized "Diver's Watch" text has been completely removed from the dial, the technical specifications explicitly state that this watch is not ISO certified, and the words "diver design" are used, rather than calling this a dive watch.
We've seen this before in our review of the Mako 3. It's a subtle yet deliberate nuance. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes, but whilst this watch is supposedly waterproof to 200m, the ISO standards for the construction of the watch have not necessarily been followed.
This dive-style watch joins an already strong field of other dive-curious-but definitely-not-ISO-certified watches from Orient; including the Mako, Ray, Kano, and Kamasu. So you’d think Orient had their diver-style game pretty well wrapped up. But they continue to tweak their sports watch offerings. The most obvious distinction from the AC0K's contemporaries is a new case design, with the crown and date at 4 o’clock – a similar layout to its cousin, the Seiko Sports 5 series. The Kamasu and others all have crowns at 3. Other differences include a very different bezel layout, and lume plots are circular rather than rectangular.
Case Finishing
“Bronzed Chrome” sounds like it could be one of Derek Zoolander’s modeling poses, but it is, in fact, the best way I can describe the unusual case colour of this particular version of the Orient Triton. I haven’t seen another watch finished like this before. It reminds me of the smoked chrome wheel rims I had on my old BMX.
There are 3 standard stainless steel case versions available (black dial, pepsi and green dial), with the AC0K being launched together with a limited edition model to celebrate Orient's 70th Anniversary. These are the first “Bronze Coloured” cases offered by Orient. Not Bronze, "Bronze Coloured". It is a slightly oxidised golden hue of dark smokey chrome on the case, crown, keepers, and buckle of the nato strap which accompanies this watch.
The tops of the lugs are brushed, and the rest of the case is polished. Whilst I can't confirm how the finish is achieved, I suspect this is a chrome-plated stainless steel case - an interesting approach to try to achieve the bronze-cased look that has been in vogue in the watch world for a while now.
This plays into one of Orient’s USPs - offering playful and interesting colour combinations. What differentiates this finish from solid bronze cases is that it is unlikely to patina like authentic Bronze cases do. The plating on the AC0K will to do the opposite in fact – protecting the stainless steel case from any form of corrosion or patina. This is not a bad thing, but not why most folks choose bronze. It certainly won't fool you into thinking it’s solid bronze, but it is an attractive change from the abundant polished stainless steel diver watch cases out there.
One slightly unfortunate side-effect is that Orient chose not to continue the plating onto the screw-down case-back, which remains the standard silvery stainless steel colour. Given the fact the rest of the components are plated to match the case, I don’t think the lack of plating on the case-back is evidence of a cost-cutting exercise, but likely, a conscious decision to avoid unnecessary skin allergies which chromium can tend to cause if worn on the skin for extended periods. Let’s be honest, the difference in case-back colour on the back of a watch is not going to be a deal breaker for most at this price point, heck, Rolex just did it on a solid gold Deepsea, but it is something that might catch you by surprise when unboxing for the first time.
I would advise you to see this case colour in person before you commit to buying it – it’s not as bronze as the press release images may want you to believe, and I can attest that it’s difficult to capture the colour in photographs. I’m not a huge fan of bronze cases or their extreme reactivity, so the fact this isn't real Bronze is not a bad thing in my book.
Color Choice
Perhaps before you notice the case colour you’ll likely pick up on the bright flash of Orange on the bezel. As Orient tries to differentiate itself from its competition, the use of Orange on the Green aluminium bezel is an unusual, but not unwelcome choice of color scheme.
The Orange on the bezel is echoed by a flash of orange on the tip of the seconds hand. The hue is cheerful and bright, perfect for a summer watch, and looks very at home by the pool or at the beach. Despite being a matte finish, since the bezel insert is aluminium, the green and orange play nicely in different lights. The green deepens to almost black in shade, whilst the orange ranges from a dark amber in low light, to vivid and flame-like in bright sunshine.
Day to day, the combination works well. If this were a diver’s watch, the two colours wouldn’t perform particularly well underwater. Orange offers great contrast on the surface, but as you descend in the water column, the light absorption quickly filters out orange wavelengths.
Similarly, the green on the bezel doesn’t stand out very well against blue or green waters. At 5-10 meters, you’d be left looking at a black and brownish bezel. But to be fair, this is not going to be much worse than a full black bezel available on the other AC0K variants. The 10-minute Arabic bezel markings are bold, light silver and highly visible - although for reasons I shall explain later, I slightly wish they weren't quite so prominent..
Water Resistance
A quick note on the lack of ISO diver's certification. The AC0K is not ISO 6425/DIN 8306 certified. This means that Orient may not have followed all of the requirements to achieve the ISO 6425 standards. They certainly haven't had the watch independently tested.
What this means is that the 200m water resistance may technically be true, but there may be other aspects that aren't sufficient to achieve the ISO standard. The relative benefits of diving with a mechanical watch at all is questionable, especially with such affordable dive computers on the market now, they're almost a no-brainer. But, whilst I was happily splashing around in the pool for this review, I'd keep the water wings handy for this one in deeper waters. Orient is clear that you should not trust this watch for scuba diving.
Bezel
On the topic of the bezel, I’ll cover one of this watch’s most disappointing features – the all-important bezel action. The knurling is deep and the 'teeth' sharpen almost to a point. However, the bezel action on the model tested was extremely stiff and difficult to rotate. I’m not sure if this was an issue with the o-ring, or the bezel/case tolerances, but this was certainly not the expected rotating action we saw on the Kamasu.
To begin with, I’d assumed it just needed a little bedding in, but after 2 weeks of use, and regardless of whether it was wet or dry, I noticed no difference in the disappointingly stiff and sluggish action. Perhaps exacerbated by the relatively sharp pointy knurling, I found using the 120-click bezel rather uncomfortable to use. Especially with my fingertips softened in the water from swimming, I began to dread having to turn the bezel.
Left to Right: Orient Triton & Orient Kamasu
This was a real shame, given the handsome bezel colors. The Kamasu on test was an entirely difference experience, with light but positive clicks. As with many diver-style watches at the price point, the bezel alignment was also a hair out when trying to center it at 12.
Specifications
|
Accuracy |
+25/-15s per day |
|
Case Diameter |
43.4mm |
|
Lug-to-Lug |
51.3mm |
|
Case Thickness |
12.8mm |
|
Power Reserve |
40hrs |
|
Water Resistance (Not ISO) |
200m |
Design Choice
On to the other disappointment of this watch, and a word of warning for those with OCD who are considering this watch, you may find the following finding disturbing, and once you see it, it’s hard to unsee - You have been warned! For a while I could tell there was something fishy with the text on the bezel, it looked like the digits had been printed individually. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.
As I looked more closely, I began to understand the problem. First I noticed it at the 30-second marker, then the 20, and finally the rest of the digits. Take a look at the images and see if you can spot it..
The two digits of the 30 are slightly angled towards each other – leaning closer together at the tops of the digits than at the bottoms. The 30 is most obvious to me, but as you scan around the bezel, you’ll see they’re all the same. This isn’t a printing error, more of a strange design choice.
Most, if not all other dive bezel watches I’m familiar with have either perfectly parallel arabics or the digits separate slightly at the top of the text as the bezel expands outwards, radially. However, the AC0K's bezel text slopes the opposite way, pointing awkwardly inwards against the radial expansion. At a glance, the numbers look like they’re defective. But I checked the press release photos, and the other models in the line and I can confirm this isn’t a one-off, all the AC0K colorways have the same dodgy bezel numerics.
All of Orient's other models like the Kamasu and Mako have bezel text which follows the industry standard of slightly angling the numbers away from each other. So it’s curious that this tried and tested design practice has been forgotten for the AC0K model, and we’re left with wonky numerals. The effect is a rather amateur appearance - something you’d expect from Spaghetti Scametti. This is the second strange QC issue we've seen from Orient - see our Mako Sport 40 review for another real doozy..
Dial
Looking beyond the fairly poorly executed bezel then, I’m happy to report that all is relatively well on the rest of the good ship AC0K. The lume plots are nicely proportioned, bordered by polished metal, and applied straight and true.
Hands are a combination of arrows for the hour and seconds with an alpha hand for the minutes. The hands have a matte silver finish which feels in keeping with the sporty nature of the watch. The dial is a matte green with relatively minimal dial text. Orient has made a slight improvement to the ‘Water Resistant’ text, which used to read ‘Water Resist’ on their older models like the Kamasu. The Orient Logo is printed rather than applied to the dial, like on the Kamasu.
I prefer the printed logo on more purposeful tool watches like this, but it undoubtedly makes the watch feel a touch more utilitarian and less luxurious. The screw-down crown is a decent size, sits nicely within the crown guards, and is easily accessible. It’s signed with an etched Orient logo - one of those nice little touches Orient is famous for; they don’t have to do it, but they choose to.
The Crown Position 0 winds the watch, Position 1 changes the date, and Position 2 hacks the seconds and sets the time. The date, it should be noted, foregoes Orient’s usual Day/Date configuration, and nestles neatly against a halved 4 o’clock lume pip. Watch nerds get rather hot and bothered about date window locations. Perhaps I was just glad to look away from the dodgy bezel numbers, but I personally found this one relatively inconspicuous and palatable. The Date change is a little slow, from around 23:00 – 00:00. On the flip side, Orient has decorated the stainless steel case back with their wave & dolphin logo etching.
Watch Strap
Most of the time it’s going to be covered by this variant’s other key design element, the green nato strap. I found the quality of this strap surprisingly good. It feels like a blend rather than pure shiny nylon.
It’s soft, flexible and comfortable. It’s relatively thin and compliant so I could fold in the loose tag-end tightly on itself. The holes were nicely finished and didn’t show signs of fraying anytime soon.
To fit my 6.5” wrist I did need to use the last 3rd or 4th hole in the strap, so you might begin to run out of size options if you have a 6” wrist or below. But then again, smaller wrists might also start to feel a little outsized by the relatively large case size at 43.4mm and Lug-to-Lug of 51.3mm.
I was surprised to find spring-bar tubes inside the nato strap, which made removing the strap rather painful, they aren’t necessary and can result in mistaken damage to the lugs, so I got rid of them for the remainder of the test. The case is designed with chamfers before the lugs to help facilitate nato strap fitting/removal, something the Japanese brands do very well and brands like Rolex refuse to offer.
Movement
Inside the case sits the F6722 in-house Orient movement with 40 hours of power reserve and +25/-15seconds per day. The model tested was well within that tolerance, closer to 15 seconds fast per day.
The ‘in-house’ manufacture label is flashed around quite a lot these days by many brands, as a sort of gold standard for watchmaking, but I believe Orient truly is making their movements in-house, as they have done for decades.
However, I think this also demonstrates that “in-house” does not always mean “better”. It’s a fine movement, but it is relatively rudimentary, it is mass-produced, it is cost-effective, and the decoration is extremely minimal. There are plastic parts in use – most notably the watch cover itself – these aren’t unusual, but certainly aren’t a premium choice.
Small details like when you screw down the crown, the watch continues to winding itself as you screw the crown in - these are details you notice on cheaper movements but which are engineered out of more premium movements. So, sure, this is technically an in-house movement, but I wouldn’t necessarily argue that because it's made by Orient, it is superior to some of the better ‘off-the-shelf’ movements from ETA or Sellita.
Alternatives
Based on looks alone, I could have been tempted by the green version of the AC0K range (AC0K02E10B), on a steel bracelet, however, the bezel text issues were a deal breaker for me. And this model is a few mm too large for my spindly wrists. So I’d be looking more closely at the Mako range, as previously recommended by Ben, perhaps the Mako III AA0819N19B.
Seiko obviously should be considered too, as a sister in the Seiko-Epsom family, and I think potentially with slightly better quality control mechanisms. Perhaps the SRPD65K4 has a similar vibe to the AC0K, with a darker metal hue from the hard coating, a green nato strap, and the addition of a display case back. At 100m, the Seiko’s WR is not as good as the AC0K’s claimed depth limits, but without the ISO dive ratings, this argument becomes irrelevant. The deepest that this thing is going will be 2m at the local pool.
Final Thoughts
In summary, I wanted to like the AC0K04E10B. I was willing to look beyond the odd case colour because of the orange accents and the cool nato strap. But as I started to look more closely, I found this dive watch that is not a dive watch distinctly lacking in some key aquatic features. The bronze wasn’t bronze, the diving capabilities weren’t that capable, and the bezel didn’t bezel particularly well. It was a nice try by Orient, but I wish they'd brought back to full-fat Triton instead - a true Diver's Watch.