“Not rich, but neat” - this is how fairy tales sometimes describe the life of modest and kind heroes (those who inherit the kingdom by the end of the story). You can also describe the watch Rodania Aigle R19002.
Genesis is a Belgian with Swiss roots and heart
The most famous watchmaking countries in Europe are Switzerland, Germany and, perhaps, Italy (yes, because Panerai). So Rodania is a kind of exclusive, because it is Belgian.
Rodania was founded in 1930 in Switzerland. In the 1950s, the company opened a distribution center in Belgium. In 1955, Rodania's international business was led by a young Swiss living in Belgium, and in 1995 he bought the brand - since then, Rodania's head office has been located in Brussels. Finally, in 2020, it was bought by several Swiss and Belgian entrepreneurs, but the registration of the company remained Belgian.
The heart of the watch is the Swiss Ronda and ISA calibers. The place of manufacture of the remaining components and assembly is not published, the watch says “Swiss Movement”, not “Swiss made”. Perhaps this place is far to the east.
In the not too long history of Rodania, there were interesting moments - both big sport and work in extreme conditions. For example, the company supplied watches to the participants of the Antarctic expeditions and was the timekeeper of the rally, up to the Dakar.
General impression - budget "Eagle"
Rodania as a whole relies on minimalistic design and practicality: steel cases, sapphire crystals and water resistance of at least 50 m in each model. For budget watches, this is a sound approach: they are unlikely to be carefully stored in a collection and carefully selected for a certain image. Rather, wear it every day, and "daily" watches need to be durable and versatile. All this is true for our today's hero - R19002.
The collection it belongs to is called Aigle (translated from French as "Eagle"). In general, there are as many as 25 collections on the official website of Rodania, but each of them consists, in fact, of a single model in different colors. So the fellow “Eagles” differ from each other only in the color of the dial, hands and strap or bracelet.
If you do not dive into the little things, Aigle R19002 is not bad at all. And even if you dive, it is also not bad, but just budget.
Design - not rich, but neat
The watch case is as simple as possible. The geometry is in order, but don't even think about the frills - chamfers, complex edges, alternating types of finishes. The case and bezel are polished and only on the upper surface of the case, below the bezel, there is a fine satin finish. The back cover is with the simplest boring engraving in the form of the brand name. The crown is quite nice: large and engraved with "R".
The case has a very unusual feature: not one hole for the strap is drilled in the ears, but two - closer to the tip of the ears and closer to the watch case. As for me, if you fasten the strap further from the case, the gap will become obscenely large, but the choice itself is pleasant. In addition, with an increased gap it is more convenient to put thick Nato and Zulu straps (unless, of course, you want to put an elegant watch on the Zulu). But I have no desire to change the complete strap. Slim, soft and concise, it fits well with a minimalist body.
The dial is very good: smoky, dark gray with a coffee sheen, with the effect of sunlight - it looks great (in my opinion, the R19002 is generally the best among all the Eagles). In addition, it creates an interesting visual effect for the case. Although the steel is uncolored, when viewed from above, the dial “shares” its smoky color with it, and it seems that the watch is slightly tinted in shades of gray.
Three sub-dials are decorated with a concentric pattern, and the sun's rays run on them too. Labels in the form of Arabic numerals and the logo are overhead, the printing of numbers and inscriptions is accurate. The hour and minute hands have a hint of a longitudinal edge. It is almost invisible, but there is an angle between the right and left halves of the arrow and they play in the light: one half is always dark, the other shines. There is a lume on the hands, so you can tell the time even at night (however, there is no lume on the markers).
The copper-coloured numbers and hands contrast beautifully with the dark dial. This is practical: although the glass is non-reflective, thanks to the contrast, time is read even at the wildest angles. And very beautiful: you can admire again and again how copper sparks flash on smoky gray.
All this, however, does not negate the overall affordability. Upon closer inspection, you can see that the entire dial is a single, one-level piece of plastic, on which the sub-dials are molded (how can you not recall the polished bevels of the Cornavin deep arenas from a recent review!). The numbers themselves and the logo, although overhead, are flat. And on the arrows under magnification, the smallest artifacts are visible - either dust particles, or processing defects.
Functionality - a pleasant surprise of pseudo-chronograph
To make budget watches seem more complicated and more expensive, they are sometimes made in the form of pseudo-chronographs: there are many sub-dials on the main dial, but there is no way to measure time intervals.
Rodania Aigle also pretends to be a chronograph: three sub-dials, two pushers at 2 and at 4 o'clock, like the iconic Omega Speedmaster. But in fact, the arena "at 3 o'clock" is just a date indicator, "at 9 o'clock" - the days of the week. But the one that is “on 6” presented a pleasant surprise.
Usually the third arena of cheap pseudo-chronographs is a 24-hour indicator that duplicates the time of the main hands. It is slightly less than completely useless (unless, of course, you are a polar explorer who only determines by the clock whether it is one o'clock outside the window or one o'clock in the morning). And Aigle had a full-fledged second time - GMT! The hand is synchronized with the main hour hand, but is adjusted independently from it in increments of one hour. You can keep the time on the main dial for London, and on the small one for Seoul, where your business partner works. Or you can simply duplicate the main time in a 24-hour day-night format. It was nice to get a useful GMT function on the pseudo-chronograph.
The top button flips the date, the bottom one adjusts the second time: one press moves the hand one hour. The days of the week, alas, are adjusted through the time translation by the crown: to go to the next day, you need to scroll the hour hand by 24 hours. If today is Thursday and the clock shows Monday (for example, after changing the battery), you will have to move the hour hand six times across the entire dial to correct the day of the week. Under natural conditions, the day of the week hand begins to gradually shift between one and two in the morning, and finally rises to the next mark at 4 in the morning.
Under the hood, the watch has the ISA 9238 caliber. It is indeed a Swiss manufacturer, just like ETA and Ronda, but it ranks lower than both in the rankings. Basically, ISA is placed in the hours of the second row - Adriatica, Swiss Military Hanowa, Charmex ... Rodania. However, there are no particular complaints about reliability on watch forums.
But personally, I have complaints about accuracy - namely, the accuracy of hitting the marks.
Arrows - you can't miss
The second hand is guaranteed to hit the marks on those quartz watches, where special functionality is provided for this (Longines Conquest VHP) or smooth movement of the hand (Bulova 262 kHz or simple Casio MTP-SW3xx). Our Aigle doesn't have that. Therefore, it did not come as a surprise that on a third of the dial the central second hand falls strictly into the marks, on the third - strictly in the middle between the marks, and the remaining third is “intermediate”.
But the 24-hour hand does not fall into the marks either: when the main time is 7:00, the small hand shows about ten minutes to seven o'clock. And even the date points past the marks. In general, the only subdial on which the arrow hits the right place is the day of the week.
To be fair, the small dials are so small that if you don't look closely, you won't notice inaccuracies. On the other hand, if the second time or date is important to you, due to inaccurate hits in the marks, you can confuse the readings.
Summary - Just Daily Hours
The Rodania Aigle has neither the halo of a glorious history, nor an innovative caliber, nor a legendary design. You can't brag about them to a familiar who is experienced in watches. It's just a watch for every day.
Due to the medium size (diameter - 42,5 mm), small thickness (11 mm) and smooth contours, they comfortably sit on the arm and fit easily under the cuffs. On the strap, they are quite light and do not tire during the day. The promised battery life is a little less than three years, the accuracy is from -10 to +20 seconds per month.
Of the obvious pluses - good readability of the main dial, water resistance of 50 m, steel and sapphire crystal, a full-fledged second time, convenient date conversion and GMT buttons. The elegant and rather neutral design will go well with clothes in different styles. For some, the Belgian affiliation of the brand and the Swiss caliber will also be a plus. Of the minuses - poor readability of the sub-dials and the failure of the sub-dial hands to hit the marks, up to the distortion of the readings.
It is felt that the watch is well made, but on a budget - a modest and positive hero of a folk tale.
