After wearing the Panerai PAM 508 for quite a significant amount of time, over 6 months, I wanted to give a detailed review of what I think of the watch and how it compares with the original.
This watch was the second replica watch purchase I made after purchasing a budget AP 15400 replica and for this watch, I tried to do more due diligence and get a higher quality version, but this version was on special so I thought I would try it out.
Looks
First and foremost, lets start off with the overall looks of the watch. So from a reasonable distance, the watch looks really good and looks on par with the authentic version. There is nothing major that strikes it off as being a replica. The case looks good, the overall layout and wordings look perfect.
Even the weight of the watch is on point (which by the way is really heavy, the watch feels like you are wearing at least one pound on your wrist).
But, when you get closer, there is one major quirk that is a quick tell that this is a replica, and that is the orange tick marks on the ceramic case between 12 o clock and 3 o clock.
The ticks are properly located and seperated. However, there is this gray shadow around the ticks which makes it an easy tell when up close. Take a look at this picture up close to see if you can see the outline of the ticks.
Compare this with the authentic which looks like:
You can clearly see that in the authentic version, there is no outline surrounding the tick marks which makes it an easy tell up close.
It is also quite annoying to look at as well as it shows up in pictures. Basically, it can’t be unseen, once you notice it, you will start noticing it more and more.
But other than that, there is nothing else that tips off this being a replica. The overall writing looks good, the whole watch itself looks pretty good
The swiss made looks good and everything else lines up well. Of coarse I have been wearing my watch for quite a long time now so the black doesn’t look as polished, but I’m sure that could be fixed. If you have any suggestions on how to make it pop out like the authentic picture, let me know in the comments below!
Ceramic Case
This leads us to talk about the ceramic casing of this watch. So ceramic watches are supposed to be more resilient to scratches as compared with regular watches.
However, for this watch (you might be able to see in the pictures or I highlight it in the video), the watch suddenly had this weird white scratch looking thing at the 7 o clock position.
So that is pretty disappointing as well, I was pretty excited about trying a ceramic watch, but since it scratched kind of easily, I would go for a higher tier ceramic watch next time.
And quite honestly, I made the scratch a bit worse which is why the watch has this lighter discoloration at the 7 o clock position since I tried removing the scratch with Windex, water, and even tried removing it with a light eraser but it only made it worse.
Movement and Power Reserve
In terms of the movement and its smoothness, the movement is incredibly smooth and I have no complaints.
I actually don’t know what the actual movement of the watch is, but I know its 28,800 vph which is smooth and since the seconds hand is smaller, it looks incredibly smooth and exactly the same as the authentic.
However, one thing that is disappointing is the power reserve of the watch.
I tested the power reserve and found out that it is a maximum of 32 hours and 37 minutes when compared with the original power reserve of 72 hours.
That is quite low, but since I wear this watch as my daily beater, I don’t have any problems but it is still inconvenient if I don’t wear my watch as much throughout the day or if I don’t wear it during the weekend then it will be stopped and I will have to set it again.
Accessories
I would say one of the best parts about this watch is that since it was on special, it came with two watch straps, one rubber and one leather watch strap and I highlighted them in the unboxing video I did for this watch.
Both of these straps are honestly amazing and exactly 1:1. I couldn’t find a single flaw with these watch straps.
The buckle, the engravings, everything waas great.
The only reason I don’t wear the watch straps is because both of them were really thick and since I have thing wrists, they made this watch stand out even more so it just looked terrible, but if I had bigger arms, then I would rock these straps no problem.
What do you guys think of this watch, feel free to leave a rating in the comments below!
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Honestly open to suggestions and always looking to improve so please let me know your suggestions and how you like these reviews.
