Cheap Apple Watch Band

The steel watch band I ordered for my Apple Watch 6 arrived today. Apple store wanted $450 for their Space Black Link Bracelet. That’s more expensive than the actual watch ($429). So I went on Amazon and found something for ~$18. Of course it won’t be the same quality but 25x is a huge premium.

The band is pretty heavy and I had to remove four links from the band to have it fit my “skinny” wrist. The fit and finish is not great: some of the “paint” or whatever already rubbed off on the packaging, and it was very hard to get the anchors into the Watch band slots. Still, 25x price difference. I’m pretty sure the Apple one will be super shiny and fit perfectly in the Watch slots.

Ultimately, this is what bothers me about manufacturing in China. Chinese factories also assemble the actual Apple products like iPhones and iPads and they do an excellent job. Why can’t they produce more quality goods on their own? Amazon is flooded with cheap Chinese products, often from the same factory, with ridiculous Engrish brand names. It’s either exorbitantly priced name brands or super cheap knock-offs. I want something in between: decent quality for a decent price. Maybe this is normal in the evolution of manufacturing. In the past, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were seen as only capable of producing cheap inferior products. Today, they are seen as comparable or better than US/Europe manufactured goods. Perhaps China will get there one day but I’m not holding my breath.

=========

It’s only been a few hours and I’ve experienced the cheapness effect already. I guess I was trying on the watch band after adjustment so I didn’t lock in the second pin, and it slopped out just now. There were spares so I put one back in, but pin was faulty so the included tool wasn’t able to push it back in. The tool is also very cheap and didn’t fit the band very well. It’s basically a screw with a long thin tip mounted in a plastic holder. The thin tip does all the work pushing the band pins and it’s bent already. Finally, one side of the watch band doesn’t fit the Watch perfectly so you can feel the edges protrude out. On the same side, the locking mechanism is already weak so the band wiggle. Sigh… why can’t they charge a bit more and make a better product? I don’t have a preconceived on how much a stainless steel watch band should cost. If everyone sells the same cheap product for $15-20, then that’s the expected price. If there was a better made $40 option, I would go for that, but not the $450 Apple option.