Watch Specifications
Case: 40mm x 8.2mm thick
Dial: White
Glass: Sapphire Crystal with two-sided Anti-Glare Surface
Case: 316L Silver Stainless Steel
Strap: 20mm Handmade Genuine Finnish Reindeer Brown Leather
Movement: Japanese Miyota JP11 Quartz
First Impressions of This Watch
The Rohje Adventurister is a solid watch. When I say solid, I don’t mean structural integrity. I mean solid as in a nice do-it-most everyday watch. The Adventurister looks good and has a nice profile that works well with a sport coat and long sleeves. But it will also pairs nicely with a t-shirt and a pair of jean when your hiking your favorite weekend trail. I like that “Rohje” comes from the Finnish word “rohjeta” which means to be brave enough or bring oneself to do something.
This is an interesting watch for me to review. As a watch collector with LOTS of watches to choose from its, refreshing to find a watch that fulfills 80% plus of my watch wearing requirements. So far, I have woven this watch to sit around the house and work on the computer, thank you COVID-19. I’ve wore it in the garage to build a mancala game board for my sons homeschool project. The Rohje felt at home doing all these activities and more. Would I wear it to rebuild a bathroom, no that is what my G-Shocks are for. Would I wear it to go diving, no that is what my Doxa is for. But everything else, definitely. The Rohje Adventurister reminds me of my post “If there was only one”. It is a great do it all watch. Classy enough for business attire, casual enough for weekend adventures.
Watch Details
The choice of the Miyota JP11 movement is a solid choice, with a 2-year battery and the 2-eye design adds a nice visual flair to the watch. Personally, I do not think the inset dials add that much in the way of information but does give the dial a bit of interest. The top dial with the 24-hour information is nice but mostly decorative in my opinion. The bottom dial is more useful as it can be set to a second time zone. The supplied tool made setting the second time zone super simple, I set mine to US West Coast Time (-8) to track parents time in Washington State. I could see a plain version of the Adventurister without the inset dials being very successful as well.
Another aspect of the watch that I really like is the Sapphire Crystal with the 2-sided anti-glare, this makes this watch super easy to read in all conditions. Except of course total darkness as there is no lume on the hands or dial.
Its appropriate that a Finnish Watch Brand like Rohje would put a Reindeer strap on their watch. Having literally hundreds of watch bands I was expecting just another leather strap but the Reindeer Band that comes with the Adventurister is truly awesome. The leather feels old and broken in right from the get-go, with a subtle softness that makes it extremely comfortable the first time you wear it. As always I try other bands with all my watches, I put a White, Tan and Gray NATO on the watch and it wore great and felt natural for the watch. However, I think I prefer the Reindeer band that it comes with. I may need to pick up the tan and black versions of these bands to round out my color options.
Another aspect of Rohje that I was not expecting was that each watch comes with a hand written note from the company. The only other watch brand that ever sent me a personal note was Visitor. The rest of the packaging was solid, the watch came in a high quality box filled with firm foam insert.
Conclusions
Overall, I really like the Rohje’s Adventurister. It’s a “solid” first watch from this young Finnish watch brand. For € 250.00 euro’s or about $275.00 USD you get a great everyday quartz watch that looks good and does almost everything you want from a watch. The brands design language has lots of potential down the road. I can clearly see an elegant dressier version of the Adventurister, and even a manual winding, lumed field style watch joining the line up someday. The Adventurister is absolutely worth checking out, currently they have dark and light dialed versions as well as a gold cased option with a black dial. Its always inspiring to see a young brand put out a solid watch like the Adventurister, can’t wait to see where the brand goes from here.
Keep on watching!