The New Orient Kamasu GMT Is One Hell Of An Affordable Diver Made For Travel

Cheap GMTs tend to be desk divers with 100 meters of water resistance and a bezel for show. The Kamasu GMT, however, goes a bit harder, with a water resistance rating to 200 meters, which makes it one of the few under $500 you could actually dive with. The Kamasu is Orient’s mid-priced steel diver, around since 2019, and this is the first version with a second time zone. Is a GMT diver the perfect everyday watch? This one might be, if you have the wrist for it.

The steel case measures 42.8mm wide, a millimeter up on the regular Kamasu, and 13.4mm thick. That sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. Add to that the 49.5mm lug-to-lug and the size disqualifies it from being a perfect daily watch. But it's pretty close. On top is a sapphire crystal, which is more than you get in a similar watch from a competitor. You still get the crown guards, which are the same as on the regular Kamasu, and the crown screws down to give you 200 meters of water resistance.

Very little on the dial has changed, which is just fine. You still get a sunburst finish, applied geometric markers, arrow-tipped hour and seconds hands and a sword minute hand. The new GMT hand also ends in an arrow and changes color by reference: red on the black, green and blue dials, gold on the orange, and blue on the limited dark blue edition. The old day-date window is gone, replaced by a framed date at three o’clock, and the minute track now sits on the rehaut.

Inside is the calibre F6P22, an in-house automatic built from Orient’s F6922. It beats at 3Hz, has 22 jewels and stores 40 hours of power. This is a caller style GMT, so the GMT hand is the one you set on its own while the local hour hand stays fixed to the minutes. For keeping an eye on a time zone away, that's a perfect solution. If you cross time zones a lot, resetting local time on arrival takes longer than on a flyer GMT. Turns out, I was way too quick looking this over and I got a bit ahead of myself. Sorry for that. This is not a GMT movement at all. It's just a 24 hour hand with a GMT bezel, with no way to independently adjust any of the hands. I wasn't expecting a watch named GMT in 2026 to not actually use just a 24 hour hand. That's not good. Not good at all. The three-link steel bracelet has Oyster-style Y-shaped links, hollow end links and a folding safety clasp.

The Orient Kamasu GMT is available now for $495. Black, green, blue and orange are regular production; the dark blue version is limited to 4,300 pieces. See more on the Orient website.