Wrist watch recommendations

[artie]

For the last number of years I've been buying watches off Amazon, in the £10 to £20 price range.

Almost always the strap fails within a year and I get a replacement which lasts <> another year so not too expensive to have a timepiece with me.

Looking at watches I never see one that I would call a nice watch, just one that will do.

I like something not too cumbersome with a timer.

How do y'all solve the wristwatch problem?

 

[marcros]

I have managed with the same decent watch (metal strap) for the last 20 years. The pins need replacing soon, and it will be worth doing so in this case. My dad is much like you. I have no idea where he gets his, but similar price range, similar frequency and similar method of failure. He gets involved in numerous gardening, agricultural and mechanical activities (when he was working and in retirement), whereas I am an office bod, and take it off for dirty or strenuous activity. if his strap doesn't break, the battery runs out and it isnt worth replacing either,

personally I would keep doing what you are doing. if you see one that you particularly like, up the budget a bit but you could spend several times what you do and I doubt that the strap would be any stronger. Metal strap perhaps worth a try?

 

[Richard_C]

My wife got me an Omega for my 40th, she had just got a big promotion, wore it all the time when I was working and travelling. Not one of the £5k ones, closer to £500. 29 today. Not for workshop, garden etc., so I got a cheap casio that was a bit rubbish and lasted 2 years. Plastic strap irritating in every sense. Then I got a fabric strap lorus titanium, about £25 from memory, clear face easy to set, lasting well after about 12 years so good value at £2 per year and a battery every 3 years. . Can recommend. Lorus are budget Seiko, likely same chips and factory.

The Omega comes out for special occasions like today.

In some cultures brand is important. Its sad but the business people you meet judge you by the suit and watch. None of that worries me at all now.

 

[Spectric]

Once you retire you can throw the watch away because you take charge of your time and do not live by the watch.

 

[Jacob]

For the last number of years I've been buying watches off Amazon, in the £10 to £20 price range.

Almost always the strap fails within a year and I get a replacement which lasts <> another year so not too expensive to have a timepiece with me.

Looking at watches I never see one that I would call a nice watch, just one that will do.

I like something not too cumbersome with a timer.

How do y'all solve the wristwatch problem?

£10 a bit pricey. Casio F-91W are usually about £8. They keep perfect time and batteries last for years.
I've got two; I lost the first one and bought another, couple of years later found it again still working well and a few seconds out, though date changes had been missed.
They have a timer, alarm, light and stop watch.
The straps fail after a year or so but are cheap to replace with better ones.
PS cheaper ones on Ebay may be factory rejects and shouldn't be on the market

 

[Argus]

Watches are a very personal thing.......what suits me may not work for others.

Seiko automatics are what I recommend - no batteries to fail.

A trusty old cheapo-wind-up watch that I bought for a couple of quid in a pawnbrokers in the 70's died and was buried in the Oman desert some 10 years later.

I got a Seiko to replace it in the Suk in Muscat - about $30 I think. The days are in written in English and Arabic. It's still going strong, a bit bent and battered, though with original metal strap and all, though it only comes out once a week when I venture out of lock-down-bang-up to stock up on booze.
When you're retired, you don't need any watches, as someone has pointed out already.

It's still as accurate now as it was when it was new., though I confess to taking the back off once, years ago to adjust the escapement regulator as it was loosing a minute now and then.

I think that you can still get the same sort of thing by Seiko.... they are about 80 or 90 quid now,

 

[eribaMotters]

I inherited a liking for Tissot mechanical watches off my late father. I bought one about 10 years to go with the two he left me, along with his gold Accurist. I wear it nearly every day as it is accurate, but not as good as the 10 second a week creep on the last of his Tissot, it's also tough and waterproof.
When away on holiday or doing something where it could get damaged I usually wear a digital Mondaine, stylish and very easy to read.

Colin

 

[Junah]

For 45 years I earned my living selling wristwatches from Timex to Patek Philippe with lots of Rolex, Cartier and Omega in between, with prices starting from £4.85 in 1975 to me selling one for just over £2million when I retired 18 months ago, I've owned lots of watches but now my everyday watch is an Apple iWatch!

 

[Sideways]

I'm one of those who rarely takes off their watch.
My taste is heavy + solid + extremely good readability. Waterproof and I expect them to take a battering without failing and I use one at a time until it breaks.
1970's Casio quartz = good + great value
A couple of Seikos and some fake market knock offs - didn't last long.
Citizen titanium divers watch = best so far - I got decades out of that. Pence per wear would be tiny and their titanium was super durable.
Limited edition mechanical divers watch = disappointing. Small failings like the screwed pins falling out and ratchet bevel index lost after a knock. Stainless steel looked like cr8p after just a few weeks But a few years in it's still going and not getting worse. At 3x the price, even If it lasts until they bury me with it, it still won't catch up with the Citizen for value.
Sapphire crystal glass is the best innovation that happened to the watch.

 

[Droogs]

Without getting too extreme re price either citezin or omega, if money no object then a patek phillipe with full engine turning. Though currently I've been using an AWC pocket watch for the last few years and it's been great

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I was given a Swatch which I used as a work watch. It lasted 4 or 5 years until the second hand fell off and gummed everything up - much abuse, so quite a good result. I am now sporting something Chinese @ €12 - it's carp, but not really any different to the Swatch. I have another rather nice watch but it can't be worn every day because of me. Special occasions only.

Work watches are disposable items, and priced accordingly.

 

[Roland]

Once upon a time I did a job in Switzerland. All the client’s staff had those expensive watches that fray your shirt cuff. The only watch in the whole building which kept perfect time was my £9.99 Argos. I don’t like metal straps so I got a fresh leather one every year or so. When the screen got too scratched I upgraded to a £19.99 model which lasted until I retired.

 

[Artiglio]

I bought a 20 year old Omega Seamaster 14 years ago, I’d always liked them. Been worn just about everyday since, has cost more in servicing and repairs than I paid for it. Crystal must be made from “indestructiblonium“ the metal work is scratched bashed and very much worse for wear, but its a “bit of me” nice but no too flashy and doesn’t attract the wrong attention. ( i also have a bimetal rolex submariner, hardly ever wear it and very self concious when i do, but having won it in a works raffle will never sell it, circumstances made it quite special).

 

[novocaine]

Seiko gets a vote from me too.
But since being bought a mi band 5 i dont tend to wear it unless togged up.
For the 28 quid this little chubk of plastic and circuit board cost i have to say im inpressed with it. 10 straps in different colours is a tenner.

 

[Billy_wizz]

I have a Casio g shock takes a right battering think it was reduced from a genuine £300 ish to £120 ish

 

[Sandyn]

When you are retired, what do you need a watch for? I get my time from my fitness tracking devices, or phone. I had a Garmin forerunner 620 for years, but it finally packed in a couple of years ago. I wear fitbit trackers, but they never last very long, but the information you get from them is amazing, and Google loves to get all that personal info about me. The best conventional watch I have is a Casio Edifice Wave Ceptor Solar chronometer, It was indestructible and still going strong. I keep in sitting on a window in the sunshine. I inherited an Apple watch, It's unusable for me, just too difficult to operate from the display. It had to be charged every day, then I would forget to put it on. I still have one of the first watches I bought in the 60's. A self winding watch. It still goes if I wind it.

 

[jcassidy]

I'd go for a Casio gshock. Quite cheap at auction and almost indestructible.

 

[D_W]

I like seiko and orient (orient used off of ebay for an automatic that you don't have to be dear with, but it looks like a nice watch). Seiko has so many watch levels that it's hard to say "Seiko" and have it be meaningful. The automatic movement watches that say "made in japan" for around $300 are probably a good lifetime watch (none that I've had has ever failed to do anything) that really looks sharp and will have a sapphire crystal that will stay clear for eons. Not sure what a watch like that goes for used.

I don't know what seiko's highest cost watches are, but they have a nifty trick movement that's in watches that are actually made in japan, called the spring drive.

Not a casual watch to go and buy, though, and maybe some confirmation from those above, the spring drives aren't thought of that well by some folks because they don't have a mainspring. They're rather a regulated electrical device, and instead of the hand ticking, the watch regulates itself so that the hand moves continuously.

The watches that have 6r15 movements in them (seiko) look almost as good as those and are probably more reliable and are about a tenth or 15th of the cost of the spring drives.

 

[MikeJhn]

I have a Breitling Navitimer that only comes off my wrist for servicing about every five years or so when it starts to loose a second a month, never failed me and still looks splendid, used money from my inheritance to buy it and reminds me of my mother every time I look at it.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The only watches I tried other than Seikos were Swatches. I had one for less than a week, it broke down. They replaced it. It lasted a week, they replaced it. It lasted a week and I threw it away.

I have a £200 titanium kinetic Seiko that doesn't leave my wrist, ever.