New watches this week: Orient shrinks the Bambino to 36mm, Oris paints its Pointer Date oxblood, and Casio puts mother-of-pearl on the Manta

by · The Gadgeteer

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Four releases landed this week, and the pattern is size. Orient shrank its dress watch to 36.4mm. Oris painted the Pointer Date oxblood. Casio put a mother-of-pearl dial in a titanium Oceanus, then went the other direction entirely and shrank a digital watch down to ring size.

Every price below is in US dollars, checked against the makers’ own stores this week. Two of the four are on sale now. Two are Japan-first releases with November dates.

  • Orient Bambino Version 7: 36.4mm case, date window deleted, $305 at Orient’s US store
  • Oris Big Crown Pointer Date: oxblood dial, 40mm, $2,400
  • Casio Oceanus Manta: mother-of-pearl dial, titanium, out November 13 in Japan
  • Casio CRW-002: a six-digit digital watch worn as a ring, $135 and $155

Orient Bambino Version 7: the 36mm one

Orient built the Bambino line on 38mm, 40.5mm, and 42mm cases. Version 7 goes under all of them.

At 36.4mm across, the new case wears like the mid-century dress watches the Bambino has always quoted, and the dial gets cleaner for the smaller canvas. The date window is gone. What is left is a domed dial under a domed crystal, baton markers, and nothing else competing for space.

The Bambino Version 7 in cream, on the wrist. The date window is gone, and the dial breathes for it.

Four references split the range. RA-BB0101S is white, RA-BB0102E is a faded green, RA-BB0103S is cream, and RA-BB0104Y puts a gold-tone case around the cream dial. Inside sits Orient’s in-house F6524 automatic, with hacking seconds and hand-winding, the same movement family that has powered the line for years.

Orient’s US store has all four at $305, marked down from $410. No end date is printed on the listing.

The size is the strategy. Dress-watch buyers have been drifting smaller for three years, and Orient’s own line had nothing under 38mm to sell them. Version 7 is the correction, priced at the line’s entry point, with the cleanest dial the Bambino has ever carried. Expect the 36.4mm case to become the default Bambino if it sells the way the early sizes did.

Price: $305
Where to Buy: Orient Watch USA

Oris Big Crown Pointer Date, in oxblood

Oris keeps adding color to the Pointer Date, and oxblood is the deepest one yet. The dial reads red-brown in shade and nearly burgundy in direct light, set into the standard 40mm steel case with the oversized crown the model is named for.

The Pointer Date in oxblood, reference 01 754 7798 4038-07 8 20 06. The fourth hand points at the date ring, as it has since 1938.

The pointer date layout is the point of the watch. A fourth hand sweeps a date scale printed around the dial’s edge, a format Oris has built since 1938, and it keeps the dial free of the window that interrupts most date watches. The Calibre 754 automatic underneath is the maker’s pointer-date movement, and the reference joins the permanent collection rather than a limited run.

The reference ships on the steel bracelet, and it slots into a color run Oris has been building for two seasons: the Pointer Date as a dial-color collection, same case and movement, the color as the edition. Oxblood is the one that reads dressiest. In low light it sits close to black; the red only shows when the light does.

Oris sells it direct at $2,400.

Price: $2,400
Where to Buy: Oris

Casio Oceanus Manta, with a mother-of-pearl dial

Oceanus is Casio’s top shelf, and the Manta line is where the finishing budget goes. The OCW-S7000PW-7AJF wraps a natural mother-of-pearl dial in a pearl-white sapphire bezel, so the two surfaces shift color together as the light moves.

The Manta OCW-S7000PW-7AJF. Mother-of-pearl under a pearl-white sapphire bezel, in a titanium case that weighs 83 grams.

The case is titanium, 42.8mm wide and 9.5mm thick, rated to 10 bar, and the whole watch weighs 83 grams on its solid titanium bracelet, which closes with a one-touch three-fold clasp and a sliding length adjustment. Tough Solar charging, Multiband 6 radio timekeeping, and Bluetooth phone link handle the timekeeping side. A smaller three-hand sibling, the OCW-S40PW-7AJF at 29.7mm, launches alongside it at ¥198,000.

Japan gets the watch first, on November 13, at ¥236,500 including tax. That converts to about $1,495.

Price: $1,495
Where to Buy: IPPO Japan

Casio CRW-002: the ring watch, in two finishes

Casio’s ring watch recreates the A168, the digital classic in production since 1995, at finger size. The CRW-002 goes on open sale in November through Casio’s US store, select retailers, and the G-SHOCK Soho store, in silver at $135 and gold at $155. Japan sells it by lottery.

The CRW-002 from both sides. A six-digit LCD, dual time, and a stopwatch, in a ring that weighs about 15 grams.

The spec is a small digital watch, worn differently. Six-digit LCD showing seconds, dual time, a 1/100-second stopwatch, an auto calendar, and a light that pulses at a preset time or on the hour, in a full-metal ring built by metal injection moulding. It ships in a size 22 fit with spacers for sizes 19 and 16, in a special box with a pouch and a display stand.

In Japan the silver ring starts at ¥19,800 through the lottery, and Casio’s regional stores open online sales on November 11. An open US sale at $135, no lottery, will test whether the idea travels beyond the collectors who chased the first one.

Price: $135
Where to Buy: Casio

Small cases won the week. The Bambino at 36.4mm is the one with the broadest reach, at a sale price, from a US store, today. The ring is the one people will ask about.

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