The workmanship of the APS Factory Audemars Piguet 15400 one-piece 3120 movement is almost perfect.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15400 model is produced by APS Factory with a solid stainless steel case, standard case diameter and ETA 2824-2 caliber in Swiss norms architecture. It is among the most successful 1:1 super clone watch reviews on the market, with its sapphire crystal AR coating glass, original case tolerances and detailed workmanship.

Case and Body Workmanship

Adding a cover plate serves one purpose: to make it look relatively closer to the original when viewed from the back of the case. But the disadvantages are much greater; For example, the gears of the added plate do not turn, the fake screws and fake stones on the plate generally look a bit sloppy, and the noise increases after the weight of the automatic rotor is increased. They make Citizen 9015, which originally had high price/performance, high stability and low noise, unrecognizable, and they also increase the failure rate. Let me emphasize the 9015 movement here again: its price/performance is truly amazing when no changes are made. Because so many extreme modifications have been made to fake watches, there have been many misconceptions about this mechanism; Moreover, many people are confused because they only know this mechanism incompletely. I can say this with confidence: without modification, the stability of the original Citizen 9015 movement can rival even the ETA 2892.

Dial and Hand Details

The manufacturer's promotional text emphasizes that this is a completely new development; so I first shot the dial surface and date from four angles. In fact, this type of dial of the 15400 is not very complicated. One detail that everyone can look at is this: the pattern on the recessed and protruding areas of the dial is different, and the pattern under the English letters at the top is also different; In other words, three separate patterns are engraved on a single dial. In the 15400s of some unnamed manufacturers, a single pattern is used on the entire dial and is ignored.

Strap, Buckle and Comfort

In the few photos below, I took the buckle from the side respectively. The manufacturer's promotion also says that the XXX part can be directly replaced with the original, but such advertising is actually very meaningless. For a watch that was already a "steel king" a few years ago and now its price has doubled to the XXX range, who can verify whether your part can really be replaced. I'm sure your friends who have the original wouldn't be naive enough to disassemble the watch to see if it can be replaced, right? Everyone should just skip these kinds of introductions, don't get hung up on them so much; Don't come and ask "can it be changed?" If you ask customer service, they will definitely tell you "yes"; Or will he say "no"? Or "we didn't try"? After all, it is enough if parts such as steel bracelets and buckles are visibly well made.

As for the buckle, it's visibly quite good; There are no burrs, engravings etc. are all at first class level. The workmanship of the lock mouth and fixing screws is also good; The manufacturer did not exaggerate in this regard.

Movement and Caliber Performance

This watch wouldn't really be worth writing an article about if it weren't for the change in mechanism that I'll explain below; So the essence of this APS Factory 15400 is actually the movement. This movement was developed from scratch together with the movement factory; It's not based on any common Japanese or Seagull mechanism. From now on, let me call it APS3120 mechanism for short. Since there is no extra cover plate, the overall thickness of the watch can definitely be reduced by more than 1.5 mm; Additionally, since the transmission does not pass through unnecessary parts, the transmission efficiency definitely increases and noise decreases. Here is the entire mechanism below; what's the difference? It's not clear, is it? It's not important.

In the lower gear area, before, whether ZF, JF or BF, they all had false gears; This one has real gear. The transfer takes place while the watch is winding or the mainspring is discharging. This alone leaves the aforementioned factories far behind.

On the shock absorber side, the manufacturer used a gourd-shaped shock absorber that is closer to the original; KIF shock absorber style. Of course, this has nothing to do with the KIF shock absorber, it just looks similar. Whether it works or not, this shock absorber style improvement at least shows the manufacturer's good intentions, right? Then, the manufacturer says that it uses a kind of "free-sprung" system to adjust the operating error (I explained the subject with and without regulator in the previous article, I will not expand on it here); This is a bit of an exaggeration. As seen in the photo, the error can still be adjusted with the regulator (speed adjustment needle), and there are no weight screws on the balance wheel. Therefore, it actually has nothing to do with the regulator-free order; We can only say that it looks more similar than before. But I must emphasize: this is not a flaw. It is almost impossible to want a movement around the XXX that is perfect in every respect and also has no regulator; The manufacturer also has production costs, right? Also, from our shipping and adjustment side, it is much easier to adjust the error in the regulator system. That's why I think the traditional regulator setting is fine on replica watches. As a result, I can say that this watch completely surpasses all factories in terms of movement; I do not accept the objection.

The reading on the caliper is 9.7 mm. I can say this: now the overall thickness of this 15400 has really reached the same level as the original factory product.

Everyone has noticed that AP watches are a little more expensive than replicas from other brands; The main reason for this is that there are more case molds. For example, here in the middle case there are a few more parts; Water tightness is provided by this gasket mechanism inside, and this is not an easy task in terms of mold precision. If you really want to copy the structure exactly to the original, the mold development cost will definitely be much higher compared to brands with simple structures such as IWC.

Actually, I also set another 15400 for comparison, but when you think about it, the others are not much different from each other; That's why it was more accurate to just shoot this. It is also quite understandable that the manufacturer made 15400 instead of 15500 in the first batch; In terms of beauty, I personally prefer 15400. Just like the old and new green Submariner; The number of people who love green is not small. Maybe after years, classic models will be more valuable at their original price. The price of this watch is actually slightly more expensive than the JF, almost the same as the ZF. When the workmanship is on par or superior to factories like ZF, and the mechanism completely surpasses them, you don't have to ask me how to choose anymore, right? This APS Factory may seem very foreign to you, but it is actually the work of the same boss as AZ. This method is currently used in such watches: a single boss produces and markets a few factory names, and the product range is quite wide. This factory is my current first choice for 15400.

I hope this article helps you. I will share more detailed disassembly, real photo review and real-replica comparison in the coming days.