Today we’ll be looking at another budget Rolex Daytona homage. This time it’s the Parnis Daytona. Parnis is a Chinese brand that specializes in producing budget luxury styled watches and homages of expensive luxury brands.
The Rolex Daytona is one of Rolex’s more popular models. As such, its style and elegance inspire many copycats and homages. This is, of course partly because of the prohibitive cost of an actual Rolex Daytona.
The Rolex brand is widely respected as one of the most prominent brands in the industry. They have made advancements in the industry as a whole, as well as starting trends among consumers. Any way you look at it, Rolex watches are sought after for both their style and their heritage.
The Rolex Daytona is a sporty chronograph watch originally designed for use by professional racecar drivers. Its style, legacy, and impact have lived on and inspired people all the way up to the present generation. Now enter the Parnis Daytona. It certainly has the look of a Rolex, but is there more to it than that? Read on to find out!
Parnis Daytona Review
Quick Look
- Seiko VK64 meca-quartz movement
- Sapphire dial window
- Ceramic bezel
- 5atm water resistance
- Above average quality
- Luminosity is very poor
In this review, we will be looking at the build quality, design, features, and pricing of the Parnis Daytona. The first thing we’ll look at in this watch though, are the specifications.
Parnis Daytona Specs
- This watch features an analog display
- It uses Seiko meca-quartz movement
- Case is 39mm in diameter, and 13.30 mm thick
- The band is men’s standard length
Build Quality
The Parnis Daytona has both a case and band made of stainless steel. The dial window is actually made of synthetic sapphire crystal, which is a nice touch. Also, it has a ceramic bezel, which is also associated with quality watches, particularly in dive watches. However, this is not intended to be a dive watch, so it’s more for show here, but still, having a ceramic bezel makes this watch a little more interesting.
On that topic, the Parnis Daytona is has a 5atm water resistance rating. This means it can handle light splashes of water, but shouldn’t be worn while swimming, bathing, or participating in water sports or activities.
All in all, the Parnis Daytona has an excellent build. When you look at the fact that it has a sapphire glass window, and a ceramic bezel, this watch has an above average build quality for a homage style watch.
Design
Right away you can see that this watch is spot on with it’s design in comparison to the watch it is trying to look like. it does very much resemble the Rolex Daytona. It even goes for authenticity by not having a date window added, as the original Rolex Daytona does not posses a date window either. Many other Rolex Daytona homages such as the Pagani Design Daytona, the Seiko Daytona, and the Invicta Daytona, have a date window added.
The first obvious difference between the Parnis and the Rolex version, is that you have the Parnis brand name at the top of the dial, just under the 12 o’clock position. This model is silver, with a whitish silver dial. The circular sub dials are black, so they stand out more.
The ceramic tachymeter bezel, is also black, on this model. On the right side of the watch, you will find the crown, as well as the The other two push buttons above and beneath it. The band is the typical segmented chain link design.
Looking at the overall design, this watch definitely does justice to the Rolex Daytona.
Features
As far as features go, this watch has full chronograph functionality. It has the 3 sub dials that you always see on chronographs. At the 3 o’clock position you’ll find the hours dial, the 6 o’clock position has the minutes, and the 9 o’clock position has the seconds dial. The crown and push buttons are screw down. The pusher above the Crown starts/stops the chronometer function, while the button beneath the crown resets the watch.
Now I had mentioned before that the chronometer was originally designed for racing. This is where the tachymeter bezel comes in. To use it, you would start the chronometer function when the car first takes off, and then stop it once the car has traveled a distance of 1 kilometer. Where the hand is pointing to on the tachymeter bezel, will tell you how many kilometers per hour the car is traveling. Not sure that many people would ever use this feature though.
The manufacturer descriptions of the watch will claim that it has luminous hands and markers, however the luminosity is so faint it may as well be nonexistent. So don’t count on any real luminous hands and markers with this watch.
Movement
I felt like I needed to make special mention of the movement used in this watch. The movement used here is the Seiko Vk64 movement. This type of movement is referred to as a hybrid movement, or meca-quartz movement. What this movement does is combine the quartz features with sweeping second hand features normally found in mechanical watches.
Pricing
The pricing is what you would expect from a homage watch, and is in the same price range as some of the others I’ve mentioned. It’s not dirt cheap, but at the same time, it doesn’t get anywhere near an expensive range.
The pricing will vary slightly depending on where you get it from, but overall, it’s not going to be too much of an investment. I think the value you are getting here is well worth the cost.
Check Price On Amazon
Parnis Daytona: Final Thoughts
From what I have seen of this watch, it would appear to be of a superior quality compared to other Rolex Daytona homages, as well as just homages in general. If you were looking for a higher quality Rolex Daytona lookalike, then this one delivers on that.
That completes our Parnis Daytona Review. If you would like to check out other luxury alternatives we have looked at, you can check those out here
