5 of the Best Must-Have Oris Watches
Oris watches are among the best values for money in the luxury timepiece industry. If you’re not familiar with the brand, now is a great time to look through their catalog and consider purchasing one for yourself. Oris was founded in the early 1900s and has been manufacturing high-quality wristwatches for decades. The top 5 Oris watches to add to your watch collection are listed below.
1. Oris Big Crown Pointer Date
Oris divides their aviation watches into vintage-inspired and modern-styled models. Descriptively, all have “Big Crown” in their names as pilot watches often have large crowns meant to be easy to operate while wearing gloves. The vintage-inspired aviation watches are pointer-dates, a signature configuration for Oris, while the modern-styled aviation watches vary stylistically and functionally to form an impressively diverse range.
The Oris Big Crown Pointer Date has been a popular range for many decades, offering old-school (think 1930s) aviation vibes and up-to-the-minute mechanical technology and specs. The distinctive pointer-date models give you tasty vintage style and a full view of the month around the dial, which many find to be a useful way to get a sense of a larger chunk of time. They come in many sizes and styles, and like all Oris watches, they offer incredible fit and finish at reasonable prices. There are also a few limited editions, as well as a weekday pointer and one with Oris’s own 403 movement.
For a real everyday watch with excellent wrist presence, an interesting complication, and good value, I really like the Pointer Date collection. The blue dial on leather feels like it’s on the move, but both sizings feel great, and I love the distinctive use of color and the effortless blend of Oris’s sporty know-how with an otherwise traditional motif.
2. Oris Big Crown ProPilot
The Pro Pilot series takes the classic look of the Big Crown and updates it with larger case sizes, more complex mechanical configurations, and even some edgy blacked-out models. There are chronographs, GMTs, alarms, altimeters and week-daters on top of the standard time + date models. The Pro Pilots carry the same massive legibility, robust build quality, and masculine attitude as IWC’s pilot’s watch range at a fraction of the price.
Is it worth it? Well, that’s always the toughest question. It’s a very enjoyable and well-made watch, so I know if you bought it you wouldn’t regret it. While it’s more than say a Hamilton, I think it’s closer in quality to Sinn, whose watches start only a little below this in price. Compare it up to Bell&Ross, Breitling or Tag Heuer, and it’s a great value.
3. Oris Aquis Date
The Oris Aquis Date can be regarded as the starter piece in the brand’s popular Aquis line of contemporary divers’ watches, which boasts such innovative models as the Aquis Depth Gauge. This one also has an attractive (and aquatic) blue dial, along with Super-LumiNova-filled indices and hands, and an unobtrusive date window at 6 o’clock.
The stainless steel case is 43 mm in diameter and has a screw-down crown (for 300 meters of water resistance) and a unidirectional diving bezel with a ceramic top ring for the minutes scale.It’s got a nonreflective sapphire crystal in the front and a see-through mineral glass window in the screwed caseback, offering a view of the automatic movement (also an Oris 733), which is equipped with a date corrector and a stop-seconds function, and, like all Oris movements, the hallmark red winding rotor that swings in both directions. The Oris Aquis Date comes on a stainless steel bracelet with a security folding clasp and divers’ extension
4. Oris Big Crown ProPilot GMT
The Oris Big Crown ProPilot GMT expands the aviation-inspired Big Crown collection, based on a 1938 model and launched in 2014. The watch has a hefty, multi-piece 45-mm case made of matte satin-finished stainless steel and topped off with a vintage-look coin-edge top ring on the bezel that evokes the design of a jet turbine.
The domed sapphire crystal is engineered to be cockpit-friendly, minimizing glare with a nonreflective coating applied to the inside. The big, white Arabic numerals also aid in legibility, contrasting starkly with the black dial and printed in Super-LumiNova. (The hour and minute hands are also filled with the luminous substance.) The date appears in a window at 3 o’clock, while the small seconds tick away in a subdial at 9 o’clock.
The watch’s signature feature, its GMT indicator, uses a center-mounted, yellow-tipped hand and a 24-hour scale that encircles the dial. The self-winding Oris Caliber 748, which is visible through the clear caseback, is based on a Sellita SW-220-1. Even the military-style, olive-green textile strap offers a nod to aviation: its patented folding clasp operates like an aircraft’s safety belt, with a release tab indicating “Lift.”
5. Oris ChronOris Williams 40th Anniversary
Our Top 5 list wouldn’t be complete without at least one motorsport watch, and it doesn’t get any better than the Oris Williams model, which earns its name after the famed Formula 1 team. Oris and Williams entered into a partnership in 2003 and launched their first Williams timepiece a little over a decade later in 2015.
Oris watches are among the best values for money in the luxury timepiece industry. If you’re not familiar with the brand, now is a great time to look through their catalog and consider purchasing one for yourself. Oris was founded in the early 1900s and has been manufacturing high-quality wristwatches for decades. The top 5 Oris watches to add to your watch collection are listed below.
The model is characterized by a sleek motorsport-inspired design with a rubber strap and either stainless steel or black carbon cases. Depending on the model, the dial often features a carbon fiber design that is reminiscent of the fast-paced world of professional racing. The collection is also quite diverse with sportier chronograph editions in all black and dressed up versions with simpler dials and smooth bezels.
Conclusion
Oris is a leading manufacturer of quality men’s timepieces with a focus on diving, aviation, and motorsports watches. What I like best about today’s watches is that they all have mechanical movements.
Originally a manufacturer of high-end quartz watches, Oris abandoned quartz entirely and refocused on producing high-quality mechanical timepieces.
This ensures that the best Oris watches for men have not only a high-quality, durable, and functional design but also a beating heart. For another intriguing option, see our article on The Best Watches Introduced by GRAND SEIKO in 2023.
