Design
The dial is what sold me. It’s silver and flat, but it has a texture to it, a meteorite-style pattern of crisscrossing lines, and in certain light you can really see it come out. I like that more than anything else about the watch.
The hour markers are small baguette-shaped stones that sparkle in the light, which is a detail I didn’t expect at this price. The full day of the week sits in a window at 12, and the date at 3 is under a cyclops magnifier. Something I noticed: the cyclops sticks up above the crystal. It’s not a problem, just a small detail.
The bezel has ridges all the way round. I like it and can’t complain. It doesn’t rotate, though. I’ve tried on watches with rotating bezels and they’re great when you’re fidgety, so I do miss that a little.
Turn it over and there’s a see-through caseback. Sometimes I just like looking at the movement working inside.
At 40 mm across and 12 mm thick, it’s a size that suits a lot of wrists.
Wearing it
My wrist is around 17.5 to 18 cm, and 40 mm is the perfect size for it. The bracelet came long. I had to take out six links, three on each side. I don’t know who has wrists that big, but sizing it was easy. They’re screw links, not push pins, and the tools come in the box. I didn’t even need the manual.
The bracelet is Presidential style with a hidden deployant clasp, and it’s the best part of the watch after the dial. When it’s closed you can barely see where it opens, so it looks clean all the way round.
Pagani lists it at 149 g, but most days I honestly forget it’s there. The one annoyance is that the bracelet sometimes catches the hair on my arm. I think pretty much every metal bracelet does that.
It’s my first and only watch, so of course I wear it to everything. It’s dressy without being too crazy, so it works with whatever I’ve got on. I’ve never had to think about whether it matches.
Quality
After about a month of daily wear it still looks pretty much brand new. No scratches on the crystal or case, just fingerprints on the glass and the fine hairlines you’d expect on the polished bezel and bracelet links. Everything still works perfectly. I can’t speak for years of wear yet, but the first month has been good.
The crown screws down and feels solid, with no wobble. To set the time I unscrew it, set it, and screw it back in. Not a big deal.
Pagani lists the crystal as sapphire with an anti-reflective coating, and it’s rated to 100 m of water resistance. I wouldn’t want to take a watch swimming, so I haven’t tested that, but it’s good to know it’s there.
The biggest miss is lume. There isn’t any. In the dark you can’t see the hands or markers at all.
I checked the accuracy against my phone over several days. It runs about 15 seconds fast every day, and it’s pretty consistent. That’s well inside Miyota’s official spec for this movement, which allows roughly -20 to +40 seconds a day, so it’s not too bad. But I like my watches accurate, and once it’s a minute or two off it does get annoying. I reset it every few days.
The date also needs a bit of attention. Like almost every date watch, it doesn’t know how long each month is. After a 30-day month, or February, it shows 31 on the first, and you correct it by hand. Normal for this kind of watch, but something you need to remember.
Value
The PD-1783 is €211.95 on Pagani Design’s official store. The watch pouch in my photos is €22.95 extra, and it has quite a premium feel.
For that money you get a sapphire crystal, a screw-down crown, 100 m water resistance, a Japanese automatic movement and a see-through caseback. The box also had a leather strap with the tools to swap it on, a microfiber cloth, a branded hang tag, a warranty card and a user manual. Getting a second strap in the box is a real extra.
Shipping from the official store took about a week from China to the Netherlands. The last-mile courier, GoFo, dropped it at the wrong address a couple of streets away. I sorted it out myself, but keep an eye on your tracking.