My dress watch to be...

I ordered the Casio MQ-27 brand new, two days ago. Just this morning, I ordered the faux lizard from China. Because I went with the AD @Shopee, I paid a $4 premium on the watch. With a free shipping voucher, I bought its replacement strap for $7.50. This is cheaper than the used Seiko tank on eBay albeit that comes with a steel case.

The watch and strap are almost totally blacked out, which I thought was nice and more elegant than a white dial or silver case. 90RM, a nice price for a brand new dress watch. I would have received the MQ today but there was a packaging problem yesterday evening. It should arrive tomorrow, and the strap, in 5 days.

Although this is a cheap resin watch, I’ve noticed that Casio’s lower end analogs have good quality and are molded well such as the MW-59 I got for my niece earlier this year. It was well made, with 50m WR. This MQ lacks a date window and has only 30m WR, but looks sharp in some of the better YouTube videos.

I don’t have almost any suit and tie functions to go to but it’s nice to have a dress watch handy. I also think it should commensurate with my worth, financially, hence it is affordable but not replica, no-brand trash. Will post more when it arrives…

Seems there is a contender from Sanda, a Chinese brand. Cost around the same with an ss case and even a jeweled crown. Should have checked it out but I still prefer Casio.

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Just an hour or so till the watch arrives. Liew witchy forces are pushing on the courier people. What a way to be waiting. If not mistaken, this watch will come in a plain card box whereas the MW-59 had a plastic stand and case.

Finally the MQ is in. I got a free plastic box-stand and an online Marco warranty via QR scan. Now to wait for the black faux lizard from China. But on with the review of what we have now…

Here’s the watch on my 6 3/4” wrist. It has an 18mm lug width and can take aftermarket straps of that size except that it might look odd stepped down twice from the case width versus just once with the supplied shouldered rubber. I find the case diameter of 26mm very wearable, and the lug to lug of 37mm, almost perfect, allowing a generous show of strap. Despite the price, the MQ is truly a dress watch.

In person, to the naked eye, the case and dial, hands and crystal, appear crisp and generally precision manufactured. Though, the design choice of stepped down bezel and lugs may not be faithful to the original Cartier tanks, similarly the miniature crown versus the tank’s oversized bejeweled one, I think the all-black construction lends a certain elegance to this time-tested form factor. Also, the choice of Arabics is a tip of hat to the famous JLC Reverso Classic. Baton markers would have cheapened the look of an already conspicuously cheap watch.

This is a watch that succeeds because it's well-made / intelligently designed, and not because it's flashy or pretentious. More later...