If you’re a young person listening to podcasts and watching YouTube like me you will most certainly will have come across ads for fashionable new watch brands.
These watches are often advertised as “disrupting the market” and “offering luxury products without the markups of traditional brands” thanks to their ability to “cut out the middle man.”
It’s a compelling proposition – the watches look great in the photos and their prices are several decimal places cheaper than the watches one would normally associate with luxury watchmaking – but don’t be fooled.
The secret to these new “market disrupting” fashion watch companies is that they spend almost all of their budget on marketing and almost none on the design, manufacturing or materials of their products.
Check out this YouTuber buy a watch identical to a MVMT for loose change off of Alibaba:
If you look in the right places you’ll find that many well established and respected watch brands offer much better quality timepieces that look just as great as your equivalent MVMT, Daniel Wellington, or Filippo Loreti and at the same, if not better price points.
You just haven’t seen these better options because the established brands making and selling them have fallen behind in the world of digital marketing.
Lucky for you that’s where me – the resident watch nerd here at The Brag – comes in. I’ve compiled a list of some of the best watches you can buy in the $50-$1000 price range that are actually worth what they charge.
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Before we quickly jump into it, here’s some quick jargon definitions so you know what the features I list actually are:
- Movement: the mechanism that lets a watch keep time.
- Quartz movement: a movement that uses a battery as a power source and an oscillating quartz crystal with a small computer chip to keep time, these are cheaper to manufacture, generally more shock resistant and generally better at keeping accurate time than the equivalent mechanical movement.
- Mechanical movement: a movement that uses a wound spring as a power source and a series of springs and cogs to keep time, despite being made effectively redundant by quartz movements these movements are still incredibly popular with enthusiasts and luxury watchmakers (ALL modern Rolexes are mechanical, for instance) since they’re more interesting to look at and interact with and require more skill to make.
- Automatic: The mechanical watch has a rotor on the back that uses the motion of you wrist throughout the day to wind the watch movement.
- Hand winding: The mechanical watch that allows you to wind it by turning the crown.
- Hacking: The second hand stops when you pull out the crown, making accurate time setting easier.
- Water resistance: Contrary to what you might think, a 30 meter water resistance doesn’t mean you can swim with the watch down to 30 meters, I could get into why this is but to save you time just go by these general rules.
- 30m – the watch can withstand rain, but don’t go swimming with it.
- 50m – the watch can withstand a dip, but don’t go thrashing it about in the water
- 100m – you can go swimming with the watch no problems
- 200m – you can go snorkeling with the watch no problems
- 300+m – you’re starting to get into proper scuba-diving territory
Without further adieu, here they are!
$20 – Casio F91W
Easily one of the most iconic watches of all time, the Casio F91W is the definitive digital watch, even Obama had one! The watch features those awesome retro looks, a comfortable and lightweight resin construction and a great little digital quartz movement with an alarm, stopwatch, calendar, and light.
.$40 – Casio CA-53W
Oh yeah! It’s calculator watch time baby! This legendary little watch is best known for its appearance on Michael J. Fox’s wrist in Back to the Future Part II. It sports a fully working calculator, an alarm, stopwatch, and of course the time and date and can be yours for just $40. And yes you can absolutely type out 5318008 so it spells “BOOBIES” when read upside down.
You can buy the Casio CA-53W-1 here
$130 – Seiko 5 SNKL23
The Seiko 5 line is one of the most affordable ways of getting into the world of mechanical watches from a reputable brand. The SNKL23 model in particular is regarded by many as the best entry-level enthusiast watch, featuring Seiko’s 7S26 automatic movement with day and date as well as a glass caseback that lets you see the rotor, springs and cogs in action.
Making a mechanical watch at this low price point does require some sacrifices though, the movement doesn’t hack or hand wind, the watch is only 30m water resistant and the bracelet is pretty cheep, using pressed folded sheet metal for its construction (you can easily swap that out for a different 17mm watch strap though).
You can buy the Seiko 5 SNKL23 here
$150 – G Shock DW5600BB
G Shocks are some of the toughest watches available, period. The DW5600 line is my pick of the bunch since it’s squared off case design isn’t quite as huge and aggro as some of the Casio division’s other watches whilst still sporting the 200 meters of water resistance and nigh indestructibility that makes G Shocks so ubiquitous.
This particular model is the BB featuring a stealthy blacked out colour scheme and inverse white-on-black digital display, though there’s a myriad of DW5600 colours to choose from.
You can buy the DW5600BB here
$200 – Orient Ray II
The Orient Ray II has earned a reputation as one of the best value sports watches in existence, it features an automatic mechanical movement with day, date hacking and hand winding, has a rotating bezel that you can use to time whatever you’d like, is made of high quality stainless steel and is water resistant to 200m making it perfect for wear in any setting short of hardcore scuba-diving or black-tie events.
.$270 – Skagen Signatur Slim Titanium
Skagen might not have the rich history that brands like Seiko, Orient or even Casio have, but what they do offer is the ultra-modern minimalist looks that have become so popular thanks to the likes of MVMT. This watch features a super slim 5mm case made of titanium (a super light, super cool metal that’s very rare for a watch at this price point), a quartz movement and 30m of water resistance
.$400-$550 – Seiko 5 “5KX” line
Another great set of watches is the new line of Seiko 5 watches, dubbed “5KX” based on the watches’ similarities to the discontinued Seiko SKX line of dive watches. These watches all feature Seiko’s 4R36 automatic movement with hacking, hand winding, day and date, 100m water resistance and a glass caseback.
The particular one I’ve picked here is the green and gold SRPD63K1 but these come in a lot of different colours so there’s something in this range to suit anyone’s style.
You can buy the Seiko 5 SRPD63K1 here
$700 – Seiko SARB017
Bit of a price jump here but I feel it’s worth giving a shoutout to these next two cult-classic Seikos since they’re incredible watches and are also recently discontinued and as such your chance to get them is running out. First up is the legendary SARB017 “Alpinist”.
This watch has a beautiful green dial with gold hands, the upgraded Seiko 6R15 movement with date, hacking and hand-winding, scratch resistance sapphire glass on the front, 200m of water resistance and an inner rotating compass bezel. This thing is just as at home in formal settings as it is at the beach or on top of a mountain, it’s a real all-rounder.
.$800 – Seiko SARB033
This is probably the most popular all-rounder watch south of a grand. The SARB033 is gorgeous, features the same Seiko 6R15 movement as the previously mentioned Aplinist, sapphire glass, 100m of water resistance and a solid stainless steel bracelet. There’s a reason these watches are so common among enthusiast and it’s a travesty that Seiko discontinued this beauty.
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