The best men’s watches for under £500
Seiko, Swatch and G-Shock prove that you don’t need to spend a fortune to bag yourself a serious watch
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Another year, another round of price hikes in the rarefied world of luxury watches. In the case of Rolex, make that three price increases in the space of 24 months. And, while we might have seen a recent reduction in the price of certain ‘grail’ pieces on the pre-owned market, second-hand watches from Switzerland’s pedigree watchmakers remain, by and large, further out of reach than they ever have been before.
Not on a footballer’s salary? No problem. Because you don’t need to turn to heavyweight horologists from the Jura Mountains to bag a serious watch. Nor do you need to ply your trade in the Square Mile to score something stylish for your wrist. Some of the most interesting watches on the market today slide in under the £500 mark. Indeed, two of the most-talked-about watches of recent years – the Bioceramic MoonSwatch and Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms, both collaborative efforts from Swatch – cost less than £350.
From big-name brands to plucky independents, and from quartz to mechanical, we’ve rounded up a selection of watches that punch well above their price tag. In this case, £500 or less.
Tissot Classic Dream 40mm
There aren’t a great deal of automatic watches that can guarantee a precision rate of +/- seven seconds a day over £500. So, to find one for under that amount is something of a find. Not only that, but, as its name suggests, Tissot’s Powermatic 80 movement boasts an 80-hour power reserve. It also has a balance spring made of Nivachron, a titanium-based alloy that’s resistant to magnetism. Why pay more, when you don’t have to?
Seiko x Bamford SRPL95
George Bamford earned his reputation as the King of Customisation by pimping watches by the likes of Rolex and Audemars Piguet. It’s now fairer to refer to George as the King of Collaborations. His most recent, with Japan’s Seiko, takes the best-selling SKX and adds a translucent dial, an ocean-blue face, and nostalgic hands and indexes previously used on SKX watches from the 1980s. Like all Bamford collaborations, expect the limited-edition release (2,025 pieces) to sell out.
Victorinox I.N.O.X. Quartz
I was once told that Victorinox tests its watches by running them over with a tank. That seems unlikely. But the I.N.O.X. Quartz is watertight to 200 metres, impervious to shocks, and resistant to magnetic fields. It also features a date display at six o’clock, luminescent hands, and a stainless steel case that’s been finished with an anti-scratch treatment. Tough as old boots, basically.
Bulova Modern Automatic
Bulova was one of the first companies to mass-produce watches with standardised parts, helping make mechanical watches affordable to the general public. No surprise, then, that American-Swiss brand appears on this list. The Modern Automatic continues in the same vein, housing a mechanical calibre that’s visible through an aperture on the dial and via an exhibition caseback.
Mondaine Essence Solar
Minimalist, modernist, and instantly recognizable, Mondaine’s halo watch is based on the Swiss Federal Railways station clock, designed by Hans Hilfiker in 1994 (hence SBB on its dial). The Essene Solar is powered entirely by light. Once fully charged, the watch will run for eight months, even if left in compete darkness. A case constructed from a renewable castor oil composite, and a cork-backed strap, add to its eco credentials.
Bamford Mayfair 2.0 White
A titanium watch for less than £500? It’s true! Bamford London has coated the titanium case of the modular Mayfair 2.0 with a removable bioceramic shell – meaning you can switch between white, black, red and blue attachments. You can also pick between a red/blue coloured strap and a white rubber strap. Meaning that this watch is actually 16 watches in one (if we’ve done the maths right).
Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms
18 months after its all-conquering collaboration with Omega, Swatch was at it again – watching queues build up outside of its stores across the world for another tie-in. This time, with Blancpain. Rendered in Swatch’s propriety Bioceramic, the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, or ‘Scuba Fifty’, reinterpreted Blancpain’s legendary dive watch in a suite of five colour options, each named after a different ocean. Unlike the MoonSwatch, the Scuba Fifty is powered by an automatic movement.
Tissot PRX 35mm
Riding the wave for smaller sports watches, the stainless steel case of Tissot’s new PRX timepiece weighs in at 35mm and is connected to an interchangeable quick-release bracelet. There’s scratch-resistant sapphire crystal on the front and a Swiss-made quartz movement on the inside. The watch’s icy-turquoise face rides another wave – the trend for Tiffany blue dials.
Hamilton JAZZMASTER THINLINE QUARTZ
Hamilton has made a name for itself as Hollywood’s go-to watchmaker, its products having featured in more than 450 films. The brand’s own leading actor is the Jazzmaster. The Thinline version possesses the main prerequisite of any great movie-star – a classy timelessness.
Certina DS-8 Moon Phase
Certina’s main claim to fame is that it produced the world’s first digital watch back in 1936. The brand’s experiments with tungsten carbine also led to some of the most scratch resistant timepieces on the market. This DS-8 model pairs a moon-phase indicator with a COSC-certified quartz movement. A decent amount of watch for the money.
Mr Jones Watches The Accurate
Mr Jones is on a mission to make you smile. The Accurate did that for us. So called because the watch is ‘accurate’ in a rather more fundamental sense than the traditional measurement of the passing of minutes.
AVI-8 Hawker Hurricane Classic Chronograph
Founded in 2012, Avi-8 is big into pilot’s watches (get the name now?). Early aviation and the RAF are big influences, as you might be able to tell by the retro styling, and red, white and blue, of this Hawker Hurricane. A Japanese quartz movement powers a stopwatch function and a date window at three o’clock.
Timex Marlin Automatic x Snoopy Easy Rider
Snoopy in sunglasses driving an easy-rider on the dial of a self-winding mechanical watch for less than £250. What’s not to love about that? The watch is fitted with a quick-release strap system, so you can switch up your look by swapping between straps. Oh, and the watch is water resistant to 50 metres.
Casio Full Metal GM-B2100
Nicknamed the ‘CasiOak’ in reference to its similarities to Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak, Casio’s octagonal-cased GA2100 series has been around for a few years. But it wasn’t until 2022 that we got a full-metal stainless steel version. Cue hysteria from the online watch community. In this case, justified.
Swatch Bioceramic MoonSwatch
The threat of the Apple Watch had some corners of the traditional watch sector panicked. Those corners needn’t have worried. Swatch’s collaboration with Omega on a low-cost, quartz version of the latter’s holy Speedmaster, the Bioceramic MoonSwatch, became the world’s most-hyped watch in well, perhaps, ever. Proof there’s still plenty of appetite among Gen Z for wearing time-telling devices on their wrists.
Seiko 5 Sports SRPD79
For less than £350, Seiko’s 5 Sports SRPD79 gets you an automatic, manually-wound movement, a 41-hour power reserve, chronograph function, date and day display, a stainless steel case and sapphire crystal glass. Plus, it’s good to a depth of 100 metres. We make that an absolute steal.
Baltic Aquascaphe Black Cream
Baltic is a French outfit heavily into vintage-inspired dive watches. There’s more than a sniff of Blancpain’s 50 Fathoms about Baltic’s Aquascaphe. It may not share the pedigree, but it does get you an automatic dive watch with a uni-directional bezel, screw-down crown and double-dome sapphire crystal glass. You can’t knock it for that.
Junghans Form C
Okay, it may tip just over the £500 mark – but this one is worth it. German watchmaker Junghans traces its beginnings back to the 19th century. And while the brand may now be synonymous with its ultra-minimalist Max Bill watch of the 1960s, there are plenty of other design successes within its cache of clean-line timepieces. Such as this, the supremely elegant Form C chronograph.
