Are San Martin Watches Any Good?

If you have been looking into affordable watches you may have heard of San Martin. They are popular on Aliexpress, which may make you question their quality. However, San Martin has a great record of high quality watches at affordable prices.

Who Are They?

San Martin is a Chinese budget watch company based in Dongguan city who sell predominantly through Aliexpress, although they do have their own website as well.

They have been a company since 2016, but have been trading on Aliexpress since 2019.

They mostly focus on dive watch homages but have started to branch out into other styles of watches and are also now producing their own original designs.

Their quality is generally very high considering they are a budget watch company from China. Usually these types of companies provide cheap, low quality copies of famous watches, San Martin seems to break this stereotype and actually tries to bring something substantial to the table.

What Is There Range Like?

San Martin has a good range of watches. They have around 100 different watches available; a lot of these are homages of the big brands such as Rolex, Omega and Seiko.

Their main focus is dive watches but they have recently been making other styles of watches so you should be able to find something that suits your taste.

In their early days they were quite like many other Chinese watch companies where the homages where a little bit more on the cloneage side of things. They basically copied a lot of bigger brands models a little too closely.

While there is still a little bit of this going on, they do make some homages that draw inspiration from a number or watches, rather than a direct copy of one single watch. A good example of this is there 38mm vintage diver watch that is certainly playing homage to the Rolex submariners of the 50s and 60s, but it’s not an exact copy.  

A lot of the Chinese watch companies use the same factories, so you will basically often find the exact same watches, just with a different brand name on them. San Martin actually manufactures the watches themselves which is why their quality is higher than a lot of the competition.

This also shows that there is actually care and pride going into the watches the make as well as allowing them to focus on research and design. This has then lead them releasing a number of their own designs.   

This is very refreshing to see as its shows China can actually produce their own designs and not just rely on copying the bigger brands.

I believe San Martin could very well move away from the homages and start focusing more on their own designs, which would make them more of an established mirco brand rather than just a Chinese homage producer.

(You can read more about – Are Homage Watches Legal?)

Pictured above is the San Martin Retro Diver

Custom Logos

San Martin also offers a very unique feature. You can get pretty much all the watches with a sterile dial, so zero branding or text, at no extra cost. For some watches this can looks pretty cool.

You can also take this one step further and actually pay to have a custom dial. You can add any text, logo or design. So long as it’s not any sort of copyright, they will print it. This isn’t something I have done yet, but I have something in mind that I am looking to try. This option is pretty cool and means you can basically personalise your watch.

Price

For an Aliexpress watch, they are priced quite high. However, they are not your run of the mill Aliexpress watch company. The quality of the watches is a lot higher and the price can be justified.

If you bought a watch of similar price from the high street and compared them, I think you would find similar, if not better quality from San Martin.

The only difference would be that the high street would offer an original design, while the San Martin would be more of a homage. If you are not too worried about homages, you will find that San Martins are some of the best available on the market.

(You can read more about – Is Buying A Watch From Aliexpress Legit?)

What You Get On Paper

When you read the specifications of the watches they all sound pretty awesome.

Obviously each watch is slightly different but you will find the cases are made from good quality metal, sapphire crystals with anti-reflective coatings, strong water proofing and decent lume and a 1 year warranty.

They also come with a number of reliable automatic movements such as the Seiko NH35, the Chinese PT500 (which is a clone of the Swiss ETA 2824) and the Swiss made Sellita SW200.

What Do You Actually Get?

San Martin actually delivers what they say. You get a high spec watch and more importantly it is built and finished to a great standard.

A lot of the straps and bracelets are both good quality and very comfy. These are notoriously bad with cheap watches as they are an easy way to cut costs.

Usually when you get a cheap watch with a decent spec, you will find that the money is spread very thinly across the watch. Usually the money may go towards the parts, but the assembly is a little questionable and you will start you see a lot of little quality control issues like misaligned bezels or poor brushing on the case.

However, with San Martin it seems to be the other way round. The quality control and the finishing are very good. You are often left wondering if you should have really paid a lot more.

If you handed me a San Martin and told me it twice the amount you paid for it, I would believe it. 

(You can read more a bout – Are Aliexpress Watches Any Good?)

Customer Service

Luckily this is something I have not had to deal with personally. However, anyone who has had an issue has rated the customer service very highly. This should give you plenty of confidence that if you do have an issue it should get sorted.

They also seem to be a company that listens and responds to feedback. I am sure you are all aware of the many Youtube watch review channels. A lot of them will point out problems or little issues with the watches. San Martin actually takes this on board and corrects the problem for the next version of the watch.

Notable Problems

San Martin does not really have any notable problems. Any little moans or niggles that people have are usually sorted by San Martin, such as rivets on a bracelet getting in the way of being able to use a micro adjust, or wanting the addition of female end links to certain bracelets.

The only real problem they have at the minute is with their branding. They have a number of different logo designs and they seem to not be able to decide what one they like. For a while a number of these logos would all appear on the same watch. 

Now they still have all the logos available, but you can pick which one you like. I think they are testing which one is most popular and then probably going to stick with that.

I think once they do this they will be able to start moving forward as a independent micro brand and start moving away from the homage watch sector.

Are They Worth It?

Yes. I think San Martin watches are great and worth the cost. I know there is a lot of distrust with Aliexpress, Chinese watches and homages in general, however, I feel San Martin are different. They seem to want to make high quality watches and seem to actually care about the quality control.

Honestly, I would not be surprised if they left Aliexpress in the next few years and just became their own independent watch brand, and I would also expect to see the prices creep up. For what is being offered now, it is a real steal.

Their quality and finish for the price is just incredible and I really think you should be taking them seriously if you are not already. I know my San Martin collection is set to increase, What I have seen from them so far has made me very happy.

(Why not read about another Aliexpress watch brand – Are Pagani Design Watches Any Good?)