Today’s review is on the Cadisen Royal Oak, or “Cadisoak”, as some are calling it. Cadisen is a Chinese watch brand known for their luxury styled analog watches. They make a wide variety of styles, including homages to more expensive luxury watches. This is not all that uncommon with many Chinese luxury styled brands. After all, their aim is to produce expensive looking luxury styled watches at a fraction of the price.
The thing about these types of brands, though, is that there are so many of them, it can sometimes be difficult to figure out if you are dealing with a quality brand or not. Well, we already know from our review on Cadisen watches, that this is a pretty good brand.
The question then is about this watch in particular. Does the Cadisen Royal Oak meet the standards set by Cadisen’s other watches? Well that is what we are going to be exploring here in our Cadisen Royal Oak review. First though, let’s take a look at the basis of this homage.
Cadisen Royal Oak: Why The “Cadisoak”?
The Cadisen Royal Oak’s design is based on Swiss luxury watchmaker Augemars Piguet’s Royal Oak collection. These are high end Swiss watches with a distinct style to them and quality Swiss movements. The thing about these is that they are extremely expensive, being upwards of $50,000 even for a used Royal Oak watch!
Needless to say, these prices are beyond most people’s budget for a watch. Luckily, there are homage watches that resemble this, such as the Cadisen Royal Oak we are talking about in this article.
G-Shock had a watch that resembled the Royal Oak, and it took on the nickname, the “Casioak”, as Casio is the manufacturer of G-Shocks. The team at Casio, however claim that their watch was never intended to be a homage to the Augenmars Piguet’s Royal Oak.
This Cadisen model, however, is clearly intended to mimic the style of the Royal Oak. Therefore, similar to the Casio G-Shock model, some people are calling this watch, the “Cadisoak’. Now with the background information out of the way, let’s get into the details about this watch!
Cadisen Royal Oak Review
Quick Look
- automatic self winding movement
- mineral dial window
- sunburst dial
- luminous hands and markers
- 5atm water resistance
Now we are going to take a look at the build, design, features, and pricing of the Cadisoak in order to find out if this watch is really any good or not. Let’s take a look at the specs here first though.
Specs
- Display Type: This watch has an analog display.
- Movement Type: Uses the Seiko NH36A automatic movement.
- Case Size: The case is 46mm in diameter and 12.5mm thick.
- Band Size: The Band is men’s standard length.
Build
Now, we’ll take a look at the build. The Cadisen Royal Oak has both a case and band made of stainless steel, although some versions have a leather band. The dial window is made of mineral crystal. A lot of people would have preferred a sapphire crystal dial window, but that would have made it slightly more expensive. It has a 5atm water resistance, which will protect it from getting wet, but you shouldn’t wear it while swimming or bathing.
The movement used here is the Seiko NH36A movement, which is an automatic, self winding, mechanical movement. This movement allows for the watch to be powered by the natural swinging motions of the arms, which decreases the amount you would have to manually wind it.
This is an overall decent build in a homage watch. Nothing too spectacular, but its not bad. It does lose points with many consumers for not having a sapphire crystal window, but perhaps they will come out with a model that does at some point.
Now at
Design
The design is just like that of the actual luxury version. It sports the octagonal angles that the Royal Oak is known for. There are several colors, and variations of this watch, some with sunburst dials, and others with waffle dials. Some have a stainless steel band, while others have leather bands. Check them out here.
The one we are looking at has a stainless steel case and band, and a blue sunburst dial. The whole watch has a solid, almost armored look to it, emphasized by the 8 bolt-like notches that surround the top of the bezel. Even the linked band has a flat, segmented, tough appearance.
Overall, the Cadisen Royal Oak has a simple, sleek look, with white and silver markers and hands. The date window is located at the 3 o’clock position. On back of the case, you will find an exhibition case back, allowing you to see the Seiko movement in action.
Now at 46mm, this watch is quite large, which has been an issue for many people, however, Cadisen did release a smaller version. The Cadisen 8180 model is 42mm, which is a much better fit for a lot of people.
Features
The Cadisen Royal Oak has your basic features for an automatic watch. You can adjust the time, and date window by manipulating the crown. It does also have a hacking feature, if you needed to synchronize you time accurately.
The hands and markers are also luminous, making it much easier to see them in the dark, but don’t expect that luminosity to last very long.
Pricing
This is a low priced watch. It sits in the middle ground for pricing of a budget watch. So while not the cheapest of homages, it is also, not very expensive either.
Prices will vary based on which particular model you get, but, even then there will only be a very small difference in price. Overall I would say that this watch is in line with many of the other homages of this type.
Cadisen Royal Oak Final Thoughts
Wrapping things up, if you like the style of the Augenmars Piguet’s Royal Oak, you will most definitely like the “Cadisoak”. It is a nice, solid build, at an affordable price. Not perfect by any means, but it gets the job done.
If you enjoyed this article, and you like homages, then you can check out some of our other reviews of luxury alternatives here
