Shengke Creative – Watch space

I’ve entitled this Post “Basic time” as this is what these quartz watches show off rather well – AND in the case of a couple of them – basic money as well! And I mean cheap!

The first and one of the cheapest is the Shengke Creative watch – at under £5.00! Bright and cheerful and very minimalist, bright yellow plastic flexible strap with pin buckle.

Shengke Creative on the wrist – for under a £5.00 note

The dial is a matt black disk with a contrasting white window showing the hours. Minutes are indicated with a hand or pointer and that’s it. No second hand, so you won’t be timing anything with this, but that’s not the point – it simply shows you the rough time, at a glance, which is about as simple as it gets.

Arguably even more basic is the next one, again at around the same pricing. This is called minimalist, which I’d have to agree with.

Gone are any numerals, being replaced with a simple hour indication black Dot on a revolving disk plus the black pointer minute hand

However, if you want to easily see if the watch is actually working, then a second hand is very useful.

This next model is the TID from Sweden. No disks this time, but more conventional with hour, minute and a centre seconds hand PLUS it has the usual clock face with numerals and so on. But again it is easy to read, simple and tells you the time. Price wise though, not quite as minimalist at around £160.

At a lower price than the TID, you might have (or could, as it’s not a current model now) opted for one of my particular favourites –

the Rolf Cremer Bogen watch from Germany. This is quite minimalist AND rather stylish. It is also the one model here with maximum information on the dial coupled with incredible simplicity.
Conventional Hour, minute and centre seconds hands, PLUS a Date window @12, but this is a large double date, which is amazing in such a compact watch and at around £130 when I bought it some years ago – I love it.

My preferred two are the Rolf Cremer, as it fulfils the minimal look with the most information and for me the best style. Second choice is the Shengke Creative as it’s bright, very clear to read at a quick glance and I’ve had this for 3 years (got it from a friend) and as cheap as it was, it’s still working just fine today, without any issues at all.

Since checking out some of the minimalist, handed and disk watches, one thing does stand out.

Often they are NOT that easy to read “at a glance”, which for me rather defeats the object. Sometimes you can be too minimum or try to depict the passage of time in an overly shorthand manner that just doesn’t work.

But the ones featured here seem to manage that trick pretty well and at really low prices, definitely not to be ignored.

Note – the Rolf Cremer Bogen I bought a few years ago and looking at their current range I don’t see it or another big date watch, which is a shame. It was certainly a winner for me. I also note – how could I not – the prices today are way up on just a few years ago and not the bargain they were.

In these times of Covid-19, “lock-downs” and general restrictions on our daily lives, unfortunately it can cause people to become really down and depression is too easy to set in.

Minimalist Shengke, Ultra thin, 30m Water Resistant, Creative, Quartz.

For me, to cheer myself up and others in the family, I thought maybe a little gift would not go amiss. This particular watch is just that AND it’s not expensive and can easily be found via Amazon, so can be posted to you directly without any issues at all.

This is the Shengke Creative watch, described as a ladies model, though at 40 mm diameter is a decent uni-sex size. Just 8.5 mm depth, it’s also very slim. Note the 20 mm Polyurethane buckle strap may be a little short for some larger wrists, but it’s very flexible and fits mine perfectly at 6.5 inches circumference. Of course, being a standard style of watch lug, it will be easy to replace with a longer or a leather strap if required.
It is described as minimalist, which is fair comment as there are no frills on this neat timepiece. The dial uses a plain black moving disc moving with a cut out segment for the fixed times disc in white contrast. The minute hand is bright and easily seen in yellow, so dial-wise as minimalist as you’d want. The watch is said to be 30 m water resistance, though as it has a snap back, I would doubt it but it certainly fits snug with that nice “snap” sound on closing.

The model comes in a few alternative colours, Black, White and Red.

Their web site shows quite a few variants, with minimalism and simplicity being the theme running through the range. And for the price – well this one cost me £23.00 which is definitely affordable. These are what I call fashion style watches, and in this particular case, very neat and easily readable too – which to my mind are just the thing for a gift to cheer someone up.

Now OK, these are not high quality movements and pretty standard fare Quartz, but let’s face it, these days most Quartz movements are darned good and if attached to simple mechanics, the technology having advanced so well now they are good time keepers none the less – and at the prices asked are amazing.

The overall watch does have an odd issue in that if you shake it hard, the minute hand, somewhat disconcertingly can move around, though once still, it seems to settle to it’s appointed spot. Doesn’t bother me as I don’t shake my watches unnecessarily anyway. Otherwise build quality is fine, the cases are an alloy construction and the finish is neat and smooth to the touch. So, considering the very low price – and used under normal wear conditions it’s actually great value.

Anyway, the one I picked (Yellow) certainly cheered me up a bit – cost very little and definitely lifted some of the Covid gloom – so that can’t be bad – can it?

Shengke watches can be seen at Amazon UK

Latest – 27th May 2021 – Watch is still going fine after 7 months – it’s reasonably accurate, neat to wear and quite a looker – getting good comments when I wear it – and if colour is your thing and you like a change now and then, having say three of them just about covers all situations. Also the strap whilst PU material is still looking good with no issues at all. I’ll probably update this review in another 6 or 7 months but I expect it to be no different.

So, being realistic, for the price of a quick snack lunch for 2 – It would be churlish to fault it!