Orient Classic Open Heart Review

What 32.9mm actually means

It means the watch is small in a way that modern watches essentially are not. For context, the smallest watches on most of our other lists are the 35mm Tissot PRX and the 37mm Citizen Tsuyosa, and both of those are considered conspicuously small by current standards. This is smaller than either.

On a wrist under about 6 inches it fits properly rather than approximately, which is the entire point. On a 7-inch wrist it will read as deliberately, obviously tiny - a look some people want and most do not. Judge it the way we judge everything, by lug-to-lug against your own wrist, and be honest.

The open heart, and why it is unusual here

An open-heart dial has an aperture cut through it, usually near the 9 or 12 position, exposing the balance wheel - the oscillating flywheel that regulates the movement. It is the component that makes a mechanical watch mechanical, and watching it swing is the closest thing a watch has to a heartbeat.

Most watches that show you the movement do it through the back, which means you only see it when the watch is off your wrist. This one shows it from the front, all day. If the appeal of a mechanical watch is the mechanism rather than the badge, that is worth more than a specification - and the alternatives are covered in the exhibition caseback shortlist. The watches that do it from the front, this one included, are ranked in the best open heart watches under $500.

The movement

Orient's own F6T22. That matters more than it sounds: at this size and price the norm is a bought-in movement or a quartz, and Orient is one of only three brands under $500 that designs and builds its own calibers (the brand ranking has the other two).

One piece of honesty. Orient publishes a daily accuracy tolerance for its F6922 and F6724 calibers - the well-known -15 to +25 seconds a day that makes those movements so easy to recommend. We have not found an equivalent published figure for the F6T22, so we are not going to quote one. Treat it as an ordinary affordable automatic and measure your own; the method is in automatic watch accuracy.

The two real limits

30m water resistance. That is splashes and rain. Not swimming, not showering, not washing up with your sleeves rolled. It is the standard rating for a small dress watch and it is not a defect, but it does mean this cannot be your only watch if you want to keep it on at the pool - the water resistance guide explains why the numbers overstate what they permit.

A mineral crystal, and 12.2mm of thickness. Mineral scratches more readily than sapphire (the comparison), which on a dress watch worn occasionally is a smaller problem than it would be on a daily beater. The thickness is the more noticeable one: 12.2mm on a 32.9mm case is proportionally chunky, and the watch sits taller than its diameter leads you to expect. An automatic movement needs a rotor and a rotor needs height - the same physics that makes hand-wound watches slimmer, explained in automatic vs hand-wound.

Who should buy it

• Anyone with a wrist under about 6.25 inches who wants a mechanical watch. The field of genuine options is tiny and this is one of the best of them.
• Anyone buying a first mechanical watch as a gift for a small wrist. It is a real automatic rather than a quartz dressed as one, and the visible balance wheel makes the point without a lecture. See the gift shortlist for the rest.
• Anyone who wants to watch the movement work. Open-heart dials are rare at any price under $500.

Who should skip it

If your wrist is over about 6.75 inches, this will look like a borrowed watch. If you want water resistance beyond rain, look at the 37mm Citizen Tsuyosa at 50m or step up to a proper 100m watch. And if you want a sapphire crystal at a small size, the 35mm Tissot PRX is the one to compare against - the small-wrist shortlist ranks the whole field by fit.