Cheap AliExpress Watch Review


Created on 19 Feb, 2022
Last Update on 28 Jun, 2023
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Angry_Review

The HONHX Sport Watch

During the first half of 2020, I was looking for a cheap digital men wristwatch close to the following specification:

  • simple display with 12/24 hours, minutes, seconds, date and weekday
  • backlight
  • stopwatch
  • waterproof for simple tasks (just to be safe: hand wash, rain, etc)
  • less than $5 including shipping

After some search, I found the candidate at AliExpress:

Notice that its functions matched all my requirements flawlessly. I also checked the strap size and seemed great.

The labels states that the brand is HONHX. However, there is not much information about such brand. My best guess is that HONHX is a close relative of the more well known SKMEI:

The advertisements also mentioned that this was a sport watch and even included some images to pass this idea:

Therefore, I though that this sport watch would be 'tough' enough to handle daily office activities.

The Purchase

Finally, in August 2020, I bought it. The delivery arrived on schedule. I've made some simple tests to check if it was really waterproof and confirm the transaction. Everything looked great.

Until here, the sport watch from HONHX looked like a masterpiece and worthy of thumbs up. However, I preferred to wait a while before rating it ... did I done right?

Issues

1st Month - Clock Delay

Digital watches usually have quartz crystals inside which are known to provide accurate time measurements and to require very little adjustments over the year. Unfortunately, this is not the case for this HONHX digital watch.

Everyday it delays a couple of seconds which builds up to roughly 1 minute per week. I've never seen anything like it with other digital watches.

3rd Month - Rust

Although I did not use this watch for swimming, taking bath nor sports, after a couple of months its screws were clearly rusting. Even its supposed 'stainless steel' backplate also started to rust:


HONHX digital watch after 18 months of very light duty cycle

12th Month - Low Battery

Somewhere between the 12~18 month after the purchase, clearly the battery was running low: each time the backlight was turned on, the clock would reset. This is specially unpleasant at night when you rely on the watch to wake up.

18th Month - Broken Case

After 18 months of very light use (ie: no sports, no water, no sun, no temperature extremes and no impact) the watch was completely useless due to a seriously broken case:


HONHX digital watch after 18 months of very light duty cycle (ie: no water, no impact, etc).

According to some watchmakers this is irreparable. Even if someone tried to fix this, it would probably:

  • cost more than a new one
  • not last much
  • not be waterproof again

A while later the other side also broke:


More pieces breaking from the HONHX digital watch.

Final Words

  • Wait longer before rating the e-commerce purchase
    This is an interesting case to show why you should wait longer before rating a purchase at an e-commerce. As soon as it arrived, everything looked great. The issues started to build up only a couple of months later.

  • Would you recommend to anyone?
    If you expect the advertisement of waterproof and sport watch to be actually true, you will regret. It could not even stand 18 months of office activities. Imagine if you really try using it for swimming and sports? For sure it would last much less than that.
    However, if you buy this watch expecting it to be something like a disposable gift, maybe you enjoy it.


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