The 10 Best Affordable Watch Brands That Won't Compromise On Quality
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“Affordable” is a mutable term in watch world. For Mark Zuckerberg, net worth $260bn and counting, a million-dollar Greubel Forsey Hand Made 1 is essentially sofa-cushion money. For a student eking out their loan, a £300 Seiko 5 – perhaps the best bang-for-buck watch in the world – is an indulgence that means eating instant noodles for a month.
Not knowing precisely where you sit on the oligarchic-ordinary spectrum, we're defining “affordable” as “offers at least two great watches for less than £1,000”. Not some buy-it-for-the-badge ticker, but considered pieces of watchmaking where affordability meets quality, rather than precludes it.
Most of these brands specialise in great cheap watches; others have a handful of options that can act as a gateway to the world of high-end horology (consider yourself warned). But they all share one thing in common: whether you're a collector or a neophyte, they've earned a place on every wrist.
Seiko
You'll find a lot of Japanese brands on this list. The country that gave us the quartz crisis has an aptly democratic approach to watches, with Seiko the epitome. Its Seiko 5 line, which includes too many models to count, has been many a watch obsessive's 'first proper watch', thanks to an unbeatable combination of in-house automatic guts, bombproof build and an unbelievable price. Every watch collection needs one.
Our pick: Seiko 5 Sports Bi-Colour GMT
5 Sports
5 Sports
Presage Cocktail
Swatch
Obviously. The brand that saved Swiss watchmaking, affordability has been Swatch's MO since the Quartz Crisis. In the last two years, its all-conquering MoonSwatch collaboration, with stablemate Omega, has reignited interest in a brand that, despite its ubiquity, hadn't set pulses racing in a while. But in the interests of avoiding ubiquity, we prefer its for-the-heads hook-up with Blancpain.
Our pick: Swatch x Blancpain Scuba Fifty Fathoms Blue Lagoon
Blue Lagoon
Trendy Lines At Night
Smak!
Timex
After dominating American watchmaking for most of the 20th century, Timex spent some time in the wilderness, burned by its pile-em-high-sell-em-cheap approach. But recently, the love's come back. As well as smart collabs with folks like Nigel Cabourn and seconde/seconde/, the brand's dipped into its sprawling archive and found gems like the disco-era Q, done up in some extremely disco colourways. Groovy.
Our pick: Q Timex
Q
Marlin
Expedition
Hamilton
Hamilton looks and feels like an American brand, but is actually Swiss, having shifted across the Atlantic in the 1960s after a decade of misjudged M&A activity. It's probably best-known as the movie watch – Hamiltons have played plot-contingent roles in a bunch of Christopher Nolan films, and one recently made a rather jarring appearance in Dune II. But the brand's cinematic bona fides stretch across 500 films, back to 1961's Blue Hawaii, in which Elvis wore the triangle-cased Ventura. Not that you should let all the silver screen sizzle distract from the fact that Hamilton makes proper watches. Inside the Khaki Field Auto, you'll find its H-50 movement – a tweaked ETA 2801 – which offers an 80-hour power reserve. Astonishing in a watch at this price point. And, yes, it was worn by Captain America in The Avengers.
Our pick: Hamilton Khaki Field Auto
Khaki Field Auto
Khaki Field
Boulton
Tissot
Even before the all-conquering PRX, Tissot was a go-to for your first Swiss-made watch. Granted, it could feel a bit naff at times, but amid all the gaudy MotoGP collabs you could always get something well-made without missing a mortgage payment. Now, you just get a PRX. The reissue of a model from 1978 has become the de facto entry-level steel sports watch, and offers a surprisingly satisfying itch-scratch for anyone who'll never get hold of an actual Nautilus.
Our pick: Tissot PRX Powermatic 80
PRX Digital
T-Classic PRX
T-Classic PRX Powermatic 80
Citizen
More Japanese watchmaking. Citizen is an innovator, with innovations including atomic watches (accurate to within a second every hundred-thousand years), and Eco-Drive, which is charged by solar power. Where other brands strive for ever-more accurate mechanical watches, Citizen's jam is actual accuracy, be it through breakthroughs in quartz, radio technology, or the resonance of atoms.
Our pick: Citizen Tsuki-yomi Moonphase
'Tsuki-Yomi' Radio-Controlled Moon Phase
ProMaster
ProMaster
Casio (and G-Shock)
They say that you're never more than six feet away from a Casio F-91W. The brand's made more than 100 million of its £15 icon since 1989, but its watchmaking is more nuanced than just cheap digital beaters. For one, it owns G-Shock, whose watches are admittedly beaters in the sense that they can withstand any beating you could throw at them. However much you've got to spend, there's a Casio-made watch for you.
Our pick: G-Shock Silver
MTP-B145D-9AVEF
A163WA-1QES
GA-B2100-1AER
Orient
There's a lot of overlap between Orient and its more famous sister company, Seiko. Specialising in wallet-friendly mechanicals, it's less innovation-minded, but pretty unbeatable if you're after, say, a dependable automatic diver that costs as much as a pair of sneakers. These are cheap watches that look and feel much more expensive. And while you're not necessarily going to hand one down to the next generation, they're sturdy enough to last most of a lifetime.
Our pick: Orient Mako III
RA-AA0820R19B
Stretto Solar Chronograph
FAC00007W0
Junghans
Junghans was once one of the biggest watchmakers in the world. During its mid-century heyday, Bauhaus alum Max Bill designed a slew of icons, reimagined versions of which have formed the bulk of its collection since relaunching, post-bankruptcy, in the aughts. Its watches tend towards Bauhausian simplicity, which makes them ideal every-dayers.
Our pick: Junghans Form A
FORM Quarz
FORM C
FORM Damen
Unimatic
One of our favourite indie brands of recent years, Unimatic gets points for a unique approach to design, rather than just churning out Submariner and Seamaster clones, like all the upstarts. For a few hundred pounds you get something Italian-made, with a solid Seiko movement, and a guarantee people will quiz you about what it is and where you got it.
Our pick: Unimatic UC4
U4 CLASSIC
€450.00 at unimaticwatches.com
UT1
€425.00 at unimaticwatches.com
U5S-MoMA-R
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