Dominic Clarke look for D W on the dial, or a sideways hour glass for MVMT. I get your joke, but in practice it’s too specific to limit the video to one awful brand
Citizen for under £500, I have owned my Citizen Eco-Drive for coming up to five years and use it for work. Keeps very good time and looks good next to my Breitling and Tag.
@@s28ero I have 15 watches. I had a citizen that would just stop working randomly after not being worn a while. So I got a different one, and it does the same thing. They just like to be worn frequently. I had both in the Sun after I got them working and after a while they'd still quit. After another reset I started alternating wearing them and after a while they were still working. As long as I wear them every now and then it keeps working just fine and I am pretty satisfied with it. ( A while being a few months)
Not sure I agree with you about Miyota Japanese movements being inferior in any way to Swiss quartz movements. The Japanese ones cost less, but in my experience they perform just as well if not better than entry level Swiss quartz movements. Other than that I think you're pretty much right on when it comes to the other points, if a watch has 3 or four of those flags, it's probably a cheap watch.
From personal experience BenQ monitors have 100% failure rate. It doesn't mean much. That being said, they're ramming a $4 quartz in a watch that's sold for much more than that. For that price you could get a better quartz movement, including from Miyota.
From my experience the Miyota movements can vary widely in quality. Some only use steel bearings for example, while others actually have jewels. The amount of jewels compared to the amount of functions can be a quality indication.
I feel like generic design is something that's really common at both the very low and very high end of watches, I mean something like Patek Philippe is the definition of generic looks wise. That's also not necessarily bad but imo one should also give credit to brands that try to push the envelope a little bit, it is ok to charge for that too.
Its not about using cheap movements so much as overpricing these cheap movements. If your watch costs 2-3 pounds to make, selling them fot 100-200 pounds is ridiculous.
Some really good points about the red flags. Makes me angry how overpriced many of these fashion brands are. However I’d never recommend a watch with a mechanical movement to someone unless they knew what they were getting in to because: Mechanicals are far less precise timekeepers than quartz and often need to be adjusted regularly because of this; they stop running after a couple of does when not worn and then need to be reset (unless you are able to wind them manually or keep them in a watch winder); they can be fiddly to reset and expensive to maintain (servicing by a watchmaker or having the movement replaced every 5 to 10 years). I’m writing this as a mechanical watch enthusiast who nevertheless still prefers them over quartz. 😉
My friend was about to buy a Daniel Wellington. I immediately sprung into action and asked him to just give me a few days before he purchased the watch. Within a week I had bought an immaculate Tissot Everytime including its original leather strap and box for just £35 delivered from ebay. Then I bought an assortment of 4 different classic nato straps from Amazon for 28 quid. For just £68 quid he had a far superior watch than anything daniel Wellington offers with the same fashion style and design. Except he now had a watch with a heritage from a reputable watch brand and 5 different interchangeable straps to choose from to match his attire. The watch will never be an expensive watch, but it will always be worth more than any Dan Wellington 👌
I own a Seiko 5 automatic, have owned it since I was 18. I'm over 40 today.. Not that is quality, however, the price then was around 1200:- ( about 126US$ ). Still the same price today, different design on the bezel etc. Best one I have ever owned.
This seems to be often touted as a defense of mineral crystal or acrylic, but as others have mentioned it seems very rare to actually shatter it, and the shock to the watch itself would also potentially damage the movement (especially mechanical) On the flip side, almost everyone who owns a watch with mineral crystal will likely scratch that crystal. Id say if you are really concerned about shattering, get acrylic, as at least you can buff the scratches out when you get them.
I buy and fix a lot of watches and Sapphire crystals are often shattered so a thicker mineral crystal is better as they flex more and you can polish scratches out. Acrylic is by far the best choice of crystal in my book but they are best on older watches with curved dials as the acrylic makes these come to life.
Lol yes. I'd love to have a GS, but my best watch currently is a Seiko Premiere. The spring drive is so awesome to look at. My Bulova Precisionist Chronograph looks very smooth, but Grand Seiko has it down with the Spring Drive.
Well, the spring drive technically is an automatic watch :) A beautiful piece of engineering and very precise quartz oscillator ran trough (ok, with a gear train in the middle) a mainspring charged by a counterweight. PErsonally love that thing.
Usually the best advice for anyone looking for something cheap: Buy a Seiko 5, a Vostok Amphibia, a Casio G-Shock in a color you like and you're pretty much done with the cheap end of collecting.
@@bengaku Yes. Most of them will be between 50 to 100 USD/euro, depending. That gives you many options with both brands. (With the 5's, I'm talking classic 5 - not the overpriced new divers.) What I'd consider really cheap: anything up to that 50 USD/euro mark. Something like a Casio AE1200, Timex Weekender, offerings from Lorus, Pulsar, etc. Stuff like 5 usd watches from AliExpress are not cheap watches, considering they usually don't even run right, offer no water resistance, are poorly made with defects, etc. etc.
@@bjornkeizers just curious what watches do you have in your collection I know I have casio including G shock also Edifice editions which can cost between 200 or 300 pounds and i would not say they whee cheap a cheap watch to me is something you get from Ali Express or wish
@@bengaku I own a few watches. Casio G-Shocks can definitely be expensive - like the GPR-B1000 rangeman that I own. When I'm talking of cheap Casio G-Shocks, I'm thinking of the DW-5600E or a 6900 series. Over the years I've owned watches like the Breitling Airwolf, two Omega Speedmasters, Rado DiaStar, and I have about 50 Casio G-Shocks.
@@bjornkeizers 50 casio watches that's enough to start a store lol yeah I like the look of the range master but it's not the sort of watch I would get full use of as many of the features really only come into play when you are mountaineering rock climbing you know that sort of thing
Funny that Rolex’s Oysterquartz ticks loud too, and the beating per second features also in “dead beat” mechanical movements. Yet, you’re right about everything you said, and I agree with this video, just wanted to spot those unusual facts.
As Ben said: none of these guarantee a bad watch, but the more of these boxes a watch checks (or shall I say "ticks") the more likely it's a bad watch. I've personally had good luck with Casio, too.
Well there are some really bad ones... e.g. in my fake ice watch, there is a myota movement that is loud as hell and doesnt hit a single index, i would consider this one as not good, though it is more accurate than my seiko
@@IKucheINtortIE going further off what Simon has said, those sort of errors tend to come from how the watch is cased. Can be a sign of a poorly built watch, not necessarily the movement. Personally I would judge both quartz and mechanical movements based on their materials, finish quality and most importantly time keeping accuracy
@@IKucheINtortIE the indexes match is about the fitting of the hands, not the movement. If they fit the second hand not taking care of centering it, that's the result. This said, very few quartz movements are valuable... A generic rule is to check if they have rubies or not. Rubies (aka jewels) are the bearings of the gears inside. Another thing that shows how good it can be is if it's thermo-compensated. The temperature has an influx over the quartz precision, so if there is a compensation for this it is much better.
While watch shopping for my mother, I was handed a Coach branded watch at a jewler's to compare to other watches on display. I gave it back and noted that their $450 marked Coach watch had a crooked dial. Bought her a nice little Citizen Eco Drive instead.
T W Generally if you’ve got a good strap, you do nothing. If you want to clean them, then take a *very* *mild* soap with water on a rag and leave it damp only. With as much care as possible, lightly clean your strap. I have never done this for any of my straps and don’t intend to. This is only if it really bothers you!
Raj Gill my Rotary skeletal watch is great and has this movement. It is somewhat difficult to set the second hand exactly where u want it as it tends to move when pressing the button down. But apart from that I’ve had no issues (had it for nearly 2 years).
@@pablohelmig1357 I know you didnt bother looking at the watch before saying that. It is the most expensive timepiece using a miyota but its not about the movement, its about the watch face
I bought a Seiko Presage Automatic for only 250€ in an Outlet Store in the Netherlands. Great price for such a nice watch with a good automatic movement
boldr have some amazing field watches for 300$. Sapphire crystal, automatic. They had the same watch with an ETA quartz for $150 that they discontinued. But I'm sure if you snoop around a bit on eBay, you'll find it new at that price.
shpalman7 I see watches like car or camera companies. the depth in knowledge and practice has to be deep, so much so that it makes barriers to entry very high for newcomers. I’d rather like to see more experimental or paired down spinoffs from heritage brands. maybe like what orient is to seiko
@@MrMadvillan well ok but which newcomers start by trying to develop an in-house movement? The entry barrier is a whole lot lower if they can buy in ETA or Seagull movements. Then again, what's the point of having all these watch brands which are all the same movement inside anyway...
Phoibos , I've found to be really good quality for the money. The Quartz diver is back on Amazon for £100... sapphire crystal , nice finishing and a Ronda quartz I think. The Pagani design diver and mechaQuartz are good too.. got them both from Ali express for £83 during 11/11 sale. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of the above.
I envy first world country. As a simple 3rd world peasant, Timex is all I could afford. So 80 dollar Seiko after conversion to my currency, tax and shipping fee basically cost as much as 2 months salary. Please appreciate the watch you have on your wrist.
I have already written a comment in the other direction calling out brands like montblanc or bulgari, which make more than decent watches with inhouse movements, but you are also right, hugo boss and s.Oliver are some brands you should not trust
@@IKucheINtortIE Yes, Hugo Boss... A friend had one... The indices came loose and got trapped behind the dial. At first it had become a rattling device without issues, but after some time it stopped working.
@@QoraxAudio yes, created my account when i got a bunny and mine and my sisters liked each other so much that by the next year i had 13 little fluff balls hopping around and you just cant fall in love with them. Or eat them but we didnt do that. We just loved them until they died
This comment will not age well if big, proven and tested classic brands will slowly start to incorporate social media marketing in their business plans lol.
I bought a "clayton" quartz dive watch from one of the local op shops. The watch cost me $20AU. I opened the the screw down case back to find that the movement was a Seiko. For a watch that weigh 146gms, 35mm case, 39mm to crown, 45mm lug to lug, solid bracelet links, date window at the 4 o'clock, and a unidirectional bezel that clicked around very nicely with no slackness. It even had lume that lasted for a couple of minutes. Unlike the traditional dive watches with water resistance of over 200m, this pretend dive watch was only 30m water resistance. Dive, dive, dive whilst having a shower. Not even that. The tip here is that you can find some bargains at the ops shops, or even at the pawn brokers, especially when they are having a huge reduction on their original prices. Mainly to keep their inventories moving. Oh yes. The name of the watch brand on the dial...My Leave. Dinkum!
"Genuine Leather." :) I had only ever received genuine leather straps on the watches I had purchased in the past. I just purchased a Seiko Presage, and it came on a calf leather strap. What a difference! So much better than "genuine leather!"
What kind of movement does a Casio Edifice watch use? It only states Japan movement on the watch’s dial. Nothing else, in detail on the official website either. Is it a cheap movement being used here? Also uses mineral glass. Costs about 230$! Thanks. Pete :”)
Great watches under 200$: - Seiko - Orient - Casio - Citizen - Vostok - Tissot - Swatch - Spinnaker - San Martin (and all the other names the watches are produced under) - Starking to be continued. Buy used, save money!
I like that Vostok makes no excuses for their cheap price. Their straps are expectedly a bit rubbish, but you can get a nice strap and the watch itself for much less than an equal, yet more expensive brand.
@@aidanpysher2764 Yep, Vostok / Boctok, you can't go wrong with them, for $200 you could have brand new automatic modded including display back, new strap, bezel and insert that's practically indestructible ⌚️
@@johnflynn4923 Agree, despite me thinking that a display caseback is not necessary and could harm the almost 800m of water resistance (yes, 800, that's when they fail in the pressure chamber). But it is all a matter of taste. For a deskdiver I would go for a display caseback, as I think the movement is quite pretty compared to Seikos and other brands.
Also if the date wheel/complications are too centralized and out of proportion to the dial (mvmt and vincero come to mind). It shows the size is out of spec and looks even more outrageous when the case is made too oversized. There are times when even a quartz movement can be a big selling point for inexpensive watches like seikos vk series mechaquartz but a huge tell is his out of scale any complication subdails could be.
@Aman Bhardwaj Of course, thats one of the first mods I suggest. They sell just about every shape and AR coating color at this point for around $40 or under
@Aman Bhardwaj yea, it does add up. I am a huge seiko fan I have a couple grand seikos myself, and I have gold plated clasps to match watch cases etc. I would recommend it! Once you invest, the tools are there forever
@Aman Bhardwaj I have replaced a chipped sapphire crystal before, same process. Also have revived "dead" watches with a little lubrication in the right spots. Nothing to lose of the watch already didnt worl but I got a free longines out of it
@Aman Bhardwaj My most prized piece is a 73 or 74 grand seiko, I go on forums and am in a facebook group to make sure I get the correct piece. My GS is very old, gold, and valuable, and I needed a very specific part for thr date quickset and the facebook owners groupnot only found me this rare piece from japan, but an uograded version with metal that will last longer
I bought a Spaghetti Scametti watch on eBay for £23,095. It had great write ups. I like colour of the watch face but I’m sure it shouldn’t lose 23 minutes every hour. I do love how when you shake it the second hand spins round inside. As complications go that’s something I’ve never seen before. 😊
I once brought a watch for $5, and it's great. I can't seem to find them anywhere, but it's a WMC, and brought secondhand, but never used, still had tags and such. Had to change battery for $15, and then I had to change straps for $25, and then the glass broke, and it was $40. Could I have gotten a nice watch for that amount of money? Sure, but I liked the design, and it's been on my wrist everyday since I brought a few years back.
2:33 To be honest, as I watchmaker I can tell that the miyota 2035 movement, we call it the tractor in our workshop, is one of the best quartz movements out there, far better than each ronda and many ETA movements, especially the new F-movements of ETA. Just had a watch for battery change, over 30 years old, still going, movement never got changed!
I was about to make a comment about this, but I have seen that you and other already did. These movements are arguably the best value for money, and very versatile because of the size and shape. I think this movement is made to fit both mens and womens watches. If you open a 40mm mens watch and see this little workhorse you will probably laugh at its aestethics. But its not the movements fault :) Its a popular movement in name brand fashion watches like e.g. Skagen and D&G, and probably many more of those. But also in watches in the lowest end, at $5-10.
Been rocking my San Martin Diver watch which has a Hi beat movt 120 click bezel domed sapphire crystal screw down crown screwed links and thick C3 superluminova for $195 us! It's running +4! It's what a Seiko diver should be!!
You should have mentioned finish as well. Much of the cost in high end watches is down to hand finishing, which can take months in some cases. Cheap watches have very little if any finishing, let alone hand finishing.
I was considering buying the swatch 007 watch. It's £186. Now I know it's well marked up because of it being special edition. It says quarts, but I assume swiss quartz? Also, you can see the internals. Only thing I don't like are a few plastic cogs. It looks great though
I'm a end user who enjoys and flips many watches and I agree with alot of what you say, but you being even more informed I ask you if you have ever reviewed good or even great chinese watches, and or will you? I think just because cheap watches are made there makes it unfair to categories all watches coming out of there as cheap, we all know some great brands manufactured and put together there. I feel strongly to say that as my wife was also made in China, and she is a great classy model too. But jokes aside we all enjoy great affordable things from there, I hope this comment is received well. Great video, thumbs up.
China has many technologies that rivals or even surpass americans. Like 5G technology and quantum computing. Dont tell me they cant make a decent watch. They can make a decent watch but at 20% the price.
Some other notes If they say sapphire glass than it’s probably cheap. Glass is generic, sapphire glass can be impure sapphire which means it’s less scratch resistant. If you want pure sapphire, look for sapphire crystal.
Hi Ben, what do you know about the Casio MTP-VT01L watch? I know that Casio has a good reputation but I've seen that model on various sites for anything from £20 to £65
I have the MTP-VT01D (Same watch as VT01L, just a stainless steel strap instead of leather), I just discovered that it has a Miyota 2035 movement (or a similar movement), based on its specs like accuracy of plus-minus 20 seconds per month, and an approximate battery life of 3 years with SR626SW cell. Otherwise it is a greatly-built watch with no ticking sound (unless you stick your ears to its watch dial) and the minute hand obviously doesn't wobble with the second hand. I was gifted that watch, but in my country it retails for about US$46 (₹3795), so if it's sold for anything significantly less than that, then it's most likely a fake.
I have a Navitimer homage by Rotary, which I bought knowing it'll be quartz and a bit overpriced. Manufacturing is quite nice, stainless steel, only 30m water resistance but surpringsingly it has screwdown crown and a sealing gasket, so I think it can be actually better. Movement is a Seiko quartz, branded SII, and after several months it is incredibly accurate. Printing is quite nice, but the slide rule is not that accurate (I guess it's because they copied the layout rather than designing it, not a printing issue). The biggest issue for me is that the chrono seconds works only in the second subdial, not the main second hand. In general it's my evetyday watch, I'm very happy with it and it got me quite a few compliments.
At the end you always get what you pay for. Dont buy watches from designer brands like Fossil, Hugo Boss, Diesel, CK etc... only buy from brands which only produce watches. For 200 bucks you can already get a pretty good watch which will last a long time. Orient is one of the best if not the best regarding price and quality ratio.
:-) It does seem that my watch brand is check marking all the points, except for me using a Miyota movement. 1. Miyota movement (Tbh, I have not had a single days' problem with the Miyota in my watch design. ) 2. All in-house design (casing, case back, movement holder, crown, dial, dial ring, strap, hands) [yep, making molds for all this was expensive] 3. Good quality leather from reputable supplier 4. Domed mineral glass 5. We just make watches. Why did we start this endeavor? We got tired of similar-looking watches when we stood in front of a shop window. Let's see what happens when we launch in about 2 months' time. (hold thumbs!)
Hi. You should check out this Swiss brand called Roamer, they were very popular before quartz crysis. But they are coming back to the game with some of most affordable Swiss made automatic watches. I found Roamer Searock on sale for £311/$408 for that price you get - Swiss made, stainless steel case, saphire glass, ETA 2824, aesthetically case reminds me Grand Seiko. There is nothing similar to that on market.
I had 2 Timex watches. One is a GMT date. Has an extra hand. Stopped working after 2 years or so. The other Timex is just a plain watch. No date, no complications. Still ticking after 13 years.
If you are looking at a watch on a web site, save the image and do a reverse image Google search. That will often show you who else is using the same exact photo.
Great advice. I saw in a forum of watch enthusiasts a user complaining about pictures from the forum (when people take shots with their watch on their wrists) being stolen by shady sellers.
If you’re unsure about watches one reliable fact is a Citizen watch is a great watch, good parts, reputable and they have tons of different designs to choose from. I have a titanium eco drive satellite wave promaster skyhawk and an eco drive promaster altichron and both are great. I also own Rolex , Bulova , Apple, Waldhoff Tourbillon and my Citizens are my go to daily wearing watches
Also Ben I would love to hear your take on some of the brands using mechaquartz movements, For example Yema (the French company making watches since right after ww2) they offer the rallygraf in mechaquartz. Also Nezumi has some great offerings. So many of these fashion brands push upwards into the 2-300 ranges at times and for that often you can get great designs from other companies, some with real heritage and pedigree.
Ive been on a watch journey for the past few months and I got suckered into buying a poor quality watch for my dads birthday - Luckily he doesmt know and loves it all the same.
5:36 my first watch purchase was actually a Hamilton khaki (no special edition or anything,i ended up returning it), great watch, well known and respected company but boy that leather strap (to be clear, some Hamilton watches do have really good quality leather). leather was very plasticky feeling, it was at best "genuine leather" which is basically the balsa wood of leather, worst of all they'd treated it with a fishy oil (I'm told popular with cheaper leather usually produced in China) so the strap and it wrist would smell fishy
Very cheap generic movements, haphazard assembly of parts, poor machining and finishing, automatics may not wind, dirt inside, will break at the first hint of a bump, effectively unrepairable and don’t keep time. You would be lucky if they don’t fail on the first or second wear. There’s a reason they’re so cheap, and it’s because no care has gone into them. You’re not losing much to buy it but you could buy a far better second hand watch from a reputable brand for a similar price, or spend a little bit more and buy a new Seiko 5 for example.
