Mine has arrived and the first impressions are very good. It's a solid and quite hefty piece, in a good way, very well balanced and extremely comfortable. I was worried that it might turn out too large for my seriously skinny wrist, but while being a good sized piece, it still shows a decent amount of bracelet on either side of the wrist, as it should, and wears pleasantly flat and relatively thin. Not as thin perhaps as the Ingenieur 3239, but the proportions are good.
The dial is hard to capture in photos but works well in practice - it reminds me a little of chocolate sprinkles, a popular Dutch breakfast food, though the effect is more sophisticated than that sounds! I was starting to wonder if I should have gone for the white but needn't have worried, the grey is versatile and gives a good contrast to the hands and indices, which catch the light very well. I haven't had time to test how long the lume lasts and I can't comment on how powerful it is compared to any other watch, but it is very well designed to show one of the clearest displays of the time I've seen in the dark, with the generously sized dial, large 12 and the lume on the hands and indices making it particularly easy to read. When I have time I'll try to get a lume shot.
The bracelet is well constructed and very easy on the wrist, with heavy solid links and no rattles, and a smoothly operating double butterfly clasp, which adds to the feeling of comfort and balance. It was also very easy to adjust - of course you'll need the correct screwdriver and it's well worth buying one of those little plastic grippy things to hold everything steady. They are sensible sized screws though, that a person of average ability can manage.
The 3D printed rotor works well, though I haven't had time to take a picture of it yet. This is clearly an evolving technology and something that has only just become possible. I'd imagine that in future the resolution will improve until it becomes possible to do something with very fine decoration, but it does work on this watch and is an interesting feature. The custom printing on the dial saying 'NUMBER NINE' refers to the number in the limited edition first 100 run, with 009 also engraved / 3D printed on the rotor. They were a bit worried that I wanted it so small, and they were imagining a signature there, but the plan was to have a scale similar to the small writing on an Ingenieur or Rolex, and for me it works well. If Rolex can write 'Superlative Chronometer' I figured I could write Number Nine to balance the dial.
The design of the case and bracelet together are a successful tribute to Genta style watches, where many others have failed (Piaget arguably!). While the bezel owes a little to the GP Laureato and / or the Royal Oak, it's not an influence that really stands out. There's more Ingenieur in the mix overall, though it has enough unique elements to have its own identity. I actually prefer the subtly curving crown guards to IWC's large flat ones on the last proper Ingenieur before whatever they've gone and done to the range now.
The S200 movement looks to be running at a very respectable +6 or +7, and feels smooth to wind and adjust, with a nice positive click to the date wheel.
Any negatives? For this price, none really. It's hard to say what makes watches look expensive, it's an accumulation of fine details that ends up as an aura. Probably preconceptions about a brand backed up by glossy marketing play their part. I won't say that the Schaffen looks just the same as watches costing 10-20 times more, which would be unrealistic, but an S200 based automatic watch with a display back and custom elements that's this well constructed does seem quite an achievement for the price. I'll try to find time to add some more photos to fill in the gaps of this mini-review tomorrow.