The movement inside most Seiko 5 Sports and many Prospex divers. For years the cheapest way into a real mechanical watch had an irritating catch. Seiko’s entry automatics could not be wound by hand and could not be stopped to set the time precisely. The 4R36 fixed both. It arrived around 2011 to replace the […]
Seiko 4R36 Movement Explained: Specs, Accuracy and Watches That Use It Read More »
The most common Swiss automatic you have never heard of. Open the caseback of almost any Swiss automatic between five hundred and three thousand dollars and there is a good chance you are looking at a Sellita. The brand rarely appears on the dial. It sells movements to other watch companies, which is why it
Sellita SW200-1 Movement Explained: Specs, Accuracy and How It Compares to the ETA 2824 Read More »
Fossil Grant chronograph and Michael Kors Lexington. This is the comparison the whole fashion-watch category has been circling, and it has the simplest answer of any of them. Fossil Group makes both watches. It owns Fossil and it licenses Michael Kors. One of those arrangements costs money and the other does not, and the retail
Fossil vs Michael Kors: The Owner and the Licensee Read More »
Rado True Thinline in ceramic and Tudor Ranger in steel. This pair separates two things buyers usually assume go together: how good a watch is and how good it looks after five years. Tudor wins the first comfortably, with a COSC-certified manufacture calibre. Rado wins the second by a margin nothing else at this price
Rado vs Tudor: Material Against Mechanics Read More »
Oris Divers Sixty-Five and Longines HydroConquest. This is the closest comparison in mid-luxury Swiss watchmaking, because the two brands land at nearly the same price from completely different structures. Longines belongs to Swatch Group, the largest movement maker in Switzerland. Oris belongs to nobody and has been independent since 1904. Oris answers with a ten-year
Oris vs Longines: Independent Against the Group Read More »
Movado Museum Classic and Skagen Signatur. Both of these watches remove everything they can from the dial. Both run quartz. Both are honest about being design objects rather than machines. One costs about $650 and the other about $78. The gap is not build quality, it is provenance, and whether provenance is worth eight times
Movado vs Skagen: What Provenance Costs Read More »
Diesel Mega Chief and Michael Kors Lexington. Two fashion watches from the same manufacturer, aimed at opposite instincts. Fossil Group builds both under licence, so the movements and crystals are shared. Diesel sells scale. Michael Kors sells polish. Neither is pretending to be watchmaking, which makes this a cleaner comparison than most. There is also
Diesel vs Michael Kors: Scale Against Polish Read More »
Longines HydroConquest and Rado Captain Cook. These two brands share a parent, a movement supplier and a price bracket, and almost nothing else. Longines sells watchmaking: exclusive calibres, an archive going back to 1832, classical proportions. Rado sells a material, and spends its engineering budget on ceramic instead of movements. Both arguments are legitimate, and
Longines vs Rado: Movement or Material? Read More »
Emporio Armani chronograph and Michael Kors Lexington. Here is a comparison with no engineering in it at all. Fossil Group builds both of these watches under licence, using the same movements, the same mineral crystal and the same case suppliers. Neither Giorgio Armani nor Michael Kors has ever made a watch. What you are comparing
Emporio Armani vs Michael Kors: Two Licences, One Factory Read More »
Tudor Ranger and Longines HydroConquest. Both of these are five-year-warranty Swiss automatics from serious companies, and both are honest answers to the same question. The difference is structural. Tudor builds calibres through a movement company it part-owns. Longines uses calibres ETA develops exclusively for it inside Swatch Group. Tudor charges roughly two and a half
Tudor vs Longines: What Manufacture Status Costs Read More »
