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# Orient Fixes The Biggest Problem With The Bambino And Releases It In 36 With No Date
- URL: https://www.itsabouttime.email/orient-fixes-the-biggest-problem-with-the-bambino-and-releases-it-in-36-with-no-date/
- Published: 2026-11-12T14:03:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-12T14:03:39.000Z
- Author: Vuk Radic
- Tags: News

For more than a decade, the Bambino has been the usual answer when someone asks for a cheap automatic dress watch. It has a domed crystal, a mid-century dial and an in-house movement, all for a few hundred dollars. Size has always been its biggest problem. Most Bambinos sit around 40mm, some go past 41mm, and a design taken from 1950s dress watches doesn’t really work at that diameter. A 38mm version helped. And while Orient in 2019 released a 36.4mm Bambino, officially called the Classic Date, that thing had a date and you really don't need a date on the Bambino. Well, now, Orient released a 36mm Bambino with no date and this is the best. Now we just need more dial colors.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/15/981552fd-1b67-4d3c-8ad7-fc38a52bf9fb/content/images/2026/11/Orient-Bambino-36-2.jpg)

The steel case is 36.4mm wide, 12.3mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 42.2mm. The sides are brushed, the bezel is polished, and the domed mineral crystal sits on top. There’s an exhibition caseback, and water resistance is 30 meters. At 12.3mm it’s borderline too tall for its diameter, but most of that height comes from the crystal. That’s part of the Bambino, and always has been. The lug-to-lug matters more, and 42.2mm will fit a hell of a lot of wrists.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/15/981552fd-1b67-4d3c-8ad7-fc38a52bf9fb/content/images/2026/11/Orient-Bambino-36-3.jpg)

You get four dials. The classic cream dial with blue hands is ref. RA-BB0104Y. Then there’s a plain white (RA-BB0103S), a green with silver hands (RA-BB0102E), and a silver dial in a gold-tone plated case (RA-BB0101S). All of them have applied baton markers and dauphine-style hands.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/15/981552fd-1b67-4d3c-8ad7-fc38a52bf9fb/content/images/2026/11/Orient-Bambino-36-4.jpg)

Inside is Orient’s in-house calibre F6524, an automatic running at 3Hz with 22 jewels and about 40 hours of power reserve. It hacks and hand-winds. The strap is 18mm wide leather with a crocodile-embossed texture and a steel pin buckle. It’s black on the white dial and brown on the other three. The old 36mm used an awkward 17mm strap, so the move to 18mm makes replacements easy to find.

The Orient Bambino 36mm has a retail price of $410, but Orient Watch USA is currently selling it for $305 as a launch promotion. In the UK it’s £319.99 in steel and £339.99 in gold-tone. See more [on the Orient website](https://orient-watch.com/en/orient/?ref=itsabouttime.email).