“Everyone’s favourite budget dress watch, the Orient Bambino, now comes in a 38 mm case!”
Everybody do the happy dance! Yeah, that’s right. For 2022, the Orient Bambino (formally known as the Orient Classic Style) now comes in a 38.4 mm case size. Over the past years, fans with skinny wrists who found themselves drawn to the Bambino either had to settle for the 40.5 mm, 42 mm or even the 36.4 mm version. The latter was marketed as a ladies’ version so, yeah, there you go.
Apart from the case diameter, the other set of figures are also quite encouraging. We get a 44 mm lug-to-lug distance, a thickness of 12.5 mm and a 20 mm lug width. The final figure is pretty important for those intending to change the strap because previous versions of the Bambino had odd-sized lug widths. We’re talking 21 mm on most while the V4 variant had 22 mm lugs.
Orient Bambino V4 (left), Orient Bambino 38 mm
“Any changes under the hood?”
Nope, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, to be honest. The new 38 mm Bambino models are powered by Orient’s in-house F6724 calibre. The 22-jeweled automatic (with hacking and hand-winding) movement continues to offer 40 hours of power reserve while beating at a rate of 3 Hz. Being a dress watch, the 30 m of water resistance should suffice.
The watch also retains the same domed mineral crystal and unframed date window at 3 o’clock.
Four new variants are due to hit the shelves this year. The RA-AC0M01S model has a gold-coloured case, hands and hour markers on a white dial and brown leather strap. Moving on, the RA-AC0M02B has a more classical (safe) scheme with a steel case paired to a black dial and leather strap. The RA-AC0M03S is pretty much identical to the aforementioned variant with a white dial being the only distinguishing feature. Finally, there’s a beige-dialed variant with blued hands and a brown leather strap. This one, my personal favourite, carries the reference number RA-AC0M04Y.
Orient has yet to release the official price list (certain quarters are stating July 2022) for the Bambino 38 mm but if it wants to remain as the default dress watch on a budget, no significant changes are expected.
