In the form of this new led piece by french brand yema, i say new. It has been on the market now for about three months, and indeed this particular specimen has been waiting patiently in the queue for review in sydney for about two of those. Last three months you saw the pop up i’m sure this video is sponsored by yema. They sent me this watch for free. I do not have to send it back indeed, as soon as i saw that they had released a reissue led watch from their back catalogue. I got in touch with them and asked if i could review it now. I do have a few gray hairs on my head, but believe it or not. I am too young to remember the led light emitting diode watches of the 1970s. I grew up on lcd digital watches, liquid crystal display watches in the 1980s, but i do have a bit of a thing. A bit of a pawn shown for these leds i’ve had a gerlach cosmonauta in my personal collection for the last 12 months or so now, and i wear on quite specific occasions. Indeed, i think these led watches make a bit of a statement if you’re, okay, with a fair degree of impracticality, let’s flip the camera and have a look at this one. I think this review is going to be necessarily brief today, there’s, not a lot of point in me, throwing in endless time lapse macro of the watch because it isn’t all that dynamic.
Unless, of course, you press the button on the side. Let’S start, instead with a quick look at the yema website, we can talk about price there as well. These are 249 us dollars in silver 279 us dollars in gold, though yema sell direct, so there’s always a deal to be had 10 off, plus a free, strap till christmas. Basically, i think there’s a minimum of 10 percent off available if you buy it from yema and one thing i noticed yesterday on the yema website, which i hadn’t seen before yema privilege, they’ve started doing their own loyalty scheme with a tiered discount level available based on Dollar spent based on reviews left and based on referrals, which i think is quite interesting. Going from 12 up to 16 discount i’ve, seen plenty of companies, offer loyalty bonuses for signing up to the newsletter and so on. I’Ve never seen a watch company. Do this offering a staggered discount based on how many watch purchases you’ve made and how many people you have referred to the company very interesting leave me a comment. Let me know what you think of this. Let me know if you’ve seen any other small companies do the same thing now. 225. Therefore, if you’re getting minimum 10 packaging is fantastic, they call this leather i’m, not necessarily convinced by that i think it’s leatherette regardless. I would much rather have one of these travel pouches than any cardboard box any day of the week, this isn’t an instruction manual.
This watch certainly does not need an instruction manual it’s, just a little bit of blurb about some of the backstory of the company. Again, very nice and a two year warranty with another leatherette card to boot, but check out the looks of this thing. It really does look pretty spectacular. Yema referred to it repeatedly as retro futuristic on their website, and who am i to argue with that? I think it looks pretty fantastic. These led watches seem to be undergoing a bit of a mini revival. Over the last couple of years, i mentioned the gerlac cosmonauta that i own in the intro. The yema has joined that crowd in 2020, along with the bulova computron and the hamilton psr i’ll talk about some of the relative merits of each watch and the relative prices of each of these watches a little later on in the video, but let’s concentrate on the Yema for now, starting with dimensions so 37 and a half mil across the widest point of this rather angular case ten and a half mil thick and a compact, 42 mil lug to lug. So if you’re, a guy or a girl with fairly small wrists, i think you’ll have no problem wearing this. One 20 millimeter lug width, though so it kind of tapers down here to about 24 20 ml lug width and there’s no taper on this supplied stainless steel. Yema branded bracelet i’ll talk more about the bracelet later on the weight, though 113 grams, so it doesn’t feel like a toy on wrist now, 37 and a half mil sounds fairly compact, but these kind of tank, tonneau square cased watches always wear a bit larger than The dimension suggests, if i put in a pocket shot here, you can see it doesn’t look inordinately small on my seven inch wrist at all.
I don’t think so stainless steel, all stainless steel construction. Here with the case, that is a piece of mineral crystal that they have integrated there into that display. Obviously, red toned crystal to make the leds glow nice and red, as was the way in the 70s stainless steel pushers, and we have a screw on high polished stainless steel case back giving this watch 100 meters of water resistance. So again, a little more practical than you would expect, but i did say that these watches involve a fair degree of impracticality. You need two hands to operate them. I don’t need to tell you that do i, it is fairly obvious there’s, a nice mixture of brushed and polished surfaces on this angular stainless steel case. The majority of it has a horizontal brush. Nice etched yema logo. There they print it on the fold. Over of the bracelet, but it is etched into the case, which i think is a nice touch bordering that mineral crystal are two high polished sections again, i think framing it nicely high polished sides as well and high polish on those two pushers we’re back to an All brushed finish, though, for each of the links on the bracelet very very 1970s, but they are road links. When did you last hear me, say road links on the channel i’ll tell you when, when i reviewed the timex m79 auto, and i definitely think that there are parallels between this yema and that timex that extend beyond the road link, bracelet now rolled links do tend To be arm, hair, nippers, and indeed this one is no exception.
It’S, certainly not as bad as the average seiko 5. And if i compare it here under macro to one of my casios, my a168, you can see the gulf and quality between the two. But i must say i would have preferred solid links rather than these road links, to be honest. Screw on high polish case back is very very pleasant, though, with the yema crest etched into the center and the usual spec sheet around the outside, including made in france and that 10 bar 100 meters of water resistance. So what does this yema leds module? Do then? Well, not an awful lot, as is the way of these things from the 1970s one push of the push at the three o’clock. There will display the time it’ll display it for about two seconds before disappearing. Again, if you’re wearing this as a daily, i would expect to get a battery life of about two years between changes. If you press it a second time, it will display the month and the date. If you press a third time, it will display a ticking seconds again. It will fade after two seconds, though, if you do not press the button again to adjust. You press the bottom button down there, the 430 hold that one in and you can cycle through. All of these adjusting features now calendar up to 2050., so i’m. Guessing that is a perpetual calendar, therefore, and it will automatically adjust the days of the month up until the year 2050.
. Last thing you can do with this one is: you can adjust the 12 or 24 hour time if you so choose, but personally i always prefer the cleaner. Look. You get from the 24 hour time. I think it suits this retro futuristic. Look better! One big advantage of an led watch is fantastic legibility. After dark those little red bars do glow very, very brightly indeed, with a press of the button at three so that’s it on wrist. I’Ve got a seven inch wrist for your reference and i think it looks pretty cool. It is a fine line between retro, futuristic and out and out kitsch with these led reissues i’m. Looking at you beloved computron, but i think this yema falls on the right side of that line. Nice brush bracelet. It really does look rather good and yema printed on there so printed there, but etched into the bottom of the case. Looking great so that’s the proper overhead shot, giving you another opportunity to see the perspective on the scale, how it looks on me and how it therefore might look on you outside. It is a very pleasant mix. I think, of brush surfaces and polished surfaces. I do like that frame the way they have bordered the the red mineral crystal with those two high polish bars. I think it looks good. Unfortunately, i can’t really show you what the watch looks like outside of natural light, because i’ve only got two hands like i said they are not the most practical of pieces on res, though super compact like to log 42, no problems at all.
For me, and my seven inch wrist anyway, but yes, moans and niggles and a couple of them are inherent to the led nature of this watch. And the first is that you do have to use two hands to use it you’re wearing the watch on one arm, and you are utilizing the other arm to press the button. Not necessarily, therefore, all that practical – and it is gon na – have to be something that you get used to if you buy one of these or any of the other led reissues and readability may be fantastic after dark, but the converse is true in bright sunlight. It really does struggle when full sun is shining on that dial. Specific complaints about this yema led are that bracelet and i alluded to it earlier on. It is a bit of a hair nipper it’s, not the worst, but it’s, not the best either. It did have me yelping like a little girl in the shopping center, with my wife and my mother in law this afternoon, when it took out a particularly long one from my lower arm. There is an obvious solution, though, and with 20 ml log width and a case that looks like it’s designed to encourage strap swaps i’m sure a lot of people will be swapping the standard bracelet for something different mesh, similar similar, look but far more comfortable and far Less chance of nipping your hairs, cross stitched, halloween, always a favorite of mine and actually works quite well tonally with this one’s colors, i reckon or mix up the textures as well.
With this colored spoletto in rust brown. I reckon you can have a bit of fun with this yama dressing. It up dressing it down, as you see fit in a way you probably couldn’t, with the other retro reissues because of the logs because of the k shape and because of the fact that it’s 20 mil but it’s a shame that yemen rather forces those strap changes On you, by their inclusion of that roll link, bracelet again, they refer to the bracelet as retro futuristic, but i reckon that’s one part of the 70s that most people would happily forget, but it is a fun watch and at 225 dollars it is well priced compared To the competition that’s roughly the same price that you’ll be paying for a boulevard, computron and, as i said, whoa, that one may be a little bit too much for most people. The gerlac cosmonauta that i mentioned is around 330 plus shipping from poland and the hamilton psr the cheapest. I could find one of them was 750 us dollars so a whole different ballpark. For that one, like i said, i think there is a parallel between this yama led and the timex m79 that i mentioned earlier on both retro reissues, both road link bracelets, both perhaps pieces for fun occasional wear, rather than to be worn as dailies. I wear my led watch when i want to make a point to non watch people i wear it for a bit of fun.
You don’t have to have a rolex daytona on your wrist to strike up a conversation with people and to tell the world that you’re into watches, and you made a conscious decision when you bought one and put it on your wrist. You can do that for far far less money, and i think one of these leds proves to the world that you’re a retro grouch very nicely indeed, so there you have it. The led watch by yemma, the most affordable of the retro led reissues from the big brands, at least so far anyway, i’m hoping to maybe pick up. One of those bulova computrons, maybe borrow one of those hamilton’s as well over the course of 2021, and do a big head to head to head to head led special. I like the yama. I think it pulls off that retro futuristic. Look that they keep talking about. In their own advertising very successfully practicality, well, on the one hand, you’ve got 100 meters of water resistance and a mineral crystal. On the other hand, you need two hands to get a read on the time and forget about it if you’re in direct sunlight, like i said these have a specific purpose: they’re, making a very specific statement, the band really that’s my only big complaint about this one. It is borderline usable. I would have loved if they’d gone, for something that didn’t have road links, perhaps even a mesh. I think it would have still have gone with the 70s look overall, but at 220 bucks i don’t think it’s overpriced.hfsMgt9fp7I
