Oris Aquis Automatic Review
My rating: 9/10. Excellent Diver’s watch. Swiss manufacturing.
Today I’m doing a Oris watch review. The Oris Aquis is a very popular timepiece that’s part of the their collection of luxury diving watches. Oris watches have been under production in Switzerland for over a century now. Having perfected traditional watch making techniques and developing a huge range of styles, Oris are now one of the top luxury Swiss watch brand. These days Oris focuses on Swiss mechanical watches exclusively. Check out my Steinhart Ocean 1 review next if you like diving watches.
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Oris Aquis Technical specifications
To start off I’m going to take a quick look at the general specifications of the Oris Aquis. This allows you to have a quick skim through of some of the details that are most important to you before we analyze the watch in more depth.
- Model Number: 733-7653-4154RS
- Crystal Material: Domed sapphire front and back including anti-reflective inside coating
- Case Diameter: 43mm
- Movement: 26 Jewel Swiss automatic Oris caliber 733, based on SW 200-1
- Extra Features: Date display, Superluminova lume, screw down crown, exhibition case
- Water Resistance: 300m / 30 bar
- Strap Material: Black rubber strap, folding clasp with extension
Oris Aquis Design And Build Quality
Oris are well known for their luxury Swiss made timepieces, and this Oris Aquis Date is no different. It’s a high spec watch with luxury featured like the domed sapphire glass on the front and rear of the watch, as well as a rather impressive 300m water resistance rating. The Oris automatic movement is also pretty great, I’ll go into more detail about the movement further below for you. I love the design of the coin edged uni-directional rotating bezel, it just adds nicely to the overall style of this diving timepiece.
Oris Aquis Dial
The main thing I expect to see when I look at the dial of a diving watch is an easy to read design, something I feel quite a few watches fail to do these days. I’m really pleased with this Oris Aquis dial though, it has a high contrast, very easy to read design which is just so important. The hands and hour markers are coated in Superluminova which makes them extra visible in dim lit conditions, perfect for diving as it gets dark very quickly as you dive. Even the date display is complete in a clever way with the white writing on a black background, rather than the opposite way around which you see done every now and then. Overall a great dial design with diving really kept in mind throughout.
Oris Aquis 43mm Sizing
Now I quite like larger watches so the Oris Aquis is ideal for me with its 43mm casing diameter. It gives you this large prominent look on the wrist that I really kind of like on my watches. When you take the screw down crown into consideration it brings the measurement up to 47mm. I know larger watches aren’t for everyone, some people with smaller wrists might not find this large design to their tastes so it’s something to keep in mind when considering this watch.
Oris Aquis Crystal
This Oris features sapphire crystal glass on the front and rear of the watch. Both sides are domed which is typically found in higher end watches such as this – domed sapphire glass tends to cost a fair amount more to produce than standard flat sapphire glass. The glass has an anti-reflective coating on the inside of the glass, meaning it won’t wear away. Sapphire glass is one of the highest scratch resistant glasses to fit on a watch. It has a Mohs hardness rating of 9 meaning you’d need a diamond to scratch it.
Strap & Clasp
The watch features this nice thick rubber strap that’s ideal for this style of timepiece. You can also find similar designs with a stainless steel strap if that’s what you prefer. The strap is pretty awesome, it features a deployment clasp that fixes to the rubber in a similar way to leather so that any slack hides under the rest of the strap. The clasp also has a diver’s wetsuit extension feature that’s really helpful as it allows you to quickly adjust the size of the strap.
The stainless steel buckle has a nice finish to it with a mix of polished and matte brushed effect. It also has the Oris brand etched into the buckle. Overall this has a great high end design to it that I’m really pleased with. The only negative I would point out is that you can’t easily swap out the straps are they’re integrated with the casing.
Oris Aquis Water Resistance
The Oris Aquis Date features a water resistance rating of 300m, or 30bar / 30 ATM however you like to read it. 300m water resistance is pretty impressive especially considering the exhibition caseback that the watch features. This 300m rating makes the watch suitable for professional marine activity, serious surface water sports and skin diving.
Something to keep note of is that when the testing of water resistance is done for a watch is that it’s done in a still environment with no added pressure or temperature changes. A 300m rating doesn’t mean you can take it 300m deep. The very motion of moving your arm would increase the pressure forced upon a watch greatly from that that it would experience just submerged.
Oris Aquis Caseback
One of my favourite features on many watches is an exhibition caseback. The Oris Aquis has this brilliant sapphire glass caseback that’s intended to show off the famous red rotar found on Oris watches. I love the ability to be able to take off my watch every now and then and just take a peek at the movement working away. There is quite a bit of engraving on the caseback, some of which could probably have been done without, but to be honest, this isn’t the worse thing to have happen, realistically it won’t be on show much.
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The Oris Aquis Automatic Movement
I mentioned earlier on in the specifications section that the Oris Aquis Date features a Oris caliber 733 movement. This is an awesome Swiss made automatic movement with 26 jewels. This is a high end movement as we would expect from Oris, it’s based on a Sellita SW200-1 movement as is very accurate and reliable.
The Oris caliber 733 movement has an impressive power reserve of 38 hours. It also vibrates at 28,800 beats per hour. Along with its automatic winding and bi-directional rotating red rotar this really is a very good movement.
Oris Aquis Date Pros & Cons
I figured I would take a look at some of the pros & cons of the Oris Aquis and display them in an easy to read format for those of you who love to skim read, I got your back.
Oris Aquis Date Pros:
- Long lasting, durable stainless steel design
- 26 jewel automatic Oris 733 movement
- High-quality contrast easy to read dial design
- Superluminova makes reading the hands and hour markers easy in dim lit conditions
- 300m water resistance offers you a high level of water resistance
- Sapphire glass on the front and rear of the watch gives you a high level of scratch resistance
- The watch is self-winding which means it never requires any battery changes
- Comfortable rubber strap with wetsuit extension
Oris Aquis Date Cons:
- The strap is integrated with the casing design meaning you can’t just replace it with any strap you like
- The rear casing has too much writing on it for my liking
- At 43mm it could be a little too large for some people
A Final Word On The Oris Aquis
So there you have it, a nice detailed look at the Oris Aquis. It’s one I’ve been wanting to do for a while now so I’m happily to finally have gotten it all ready for you to read. This has been a really popular watch for Oris and I can understand why, I was pleased with pretty much the majority of the watch. My only negatives as I mentioned along the way was the integrated strap and over doing it a little on the caseback, nothing I’d consider to be anything major that would put me off buying it that’s for sure.
Overall I highly recommend the Oris Aquis, and it deserves it. We took a look at some of the watches benefits and highlighted some of the negatives associated with it but I feel it still whole heartedly deserves the 9/10 that I’ve awarded it.
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Where To Buy The Oris Aquis
I’d recommend buying the Oris Aquis from Amazon here, it’s been a big seller on Amazon and has lots of reviews from other buyers available for you to read through as well. Amazon offers great customer service and protection.
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Thanks For Reading
I hope you enjoyed having a read through of this extensive Oris Aquis review. As always let us know in the comments what you thought of this watch.
