Quartz vs. Mechanical watches

Been thinking about getting a new watch and have been browsing around the websites a bit. All the famous expensive Swiss watch makers make almost exclusively mechanical watches which you either have to wind up or wind themselves up automatically by means of a semicircular rotor.

So, they must be pretty accurate then? Erm....nope. Tissot (which are perhaps not quite in the premier league of Swiss watches claim their mechanical watches are accurate to +40/-10 seconds per day. Oris, which defintely are in the top tier are only slightly better at +30/-5 seconds per day. Most of the others are similar. Only Breitling can claim +5/-5 seconds per day and that's only on their "chronometer" certified top of the range watches (in order to be called a "chronometer" a timepiece must pass some strict accuracy tests at various temperatures, pressures and other conditions).

So, you pays your £1000 or more (can be MUCH more) and you get a watch you'll have to set on average once a week, by which time it might already be 3-4 minutes slow . By comparison even the cheapest quartz watches will lose or gain maybe a minute each year.

Quite apart from not really being able to justify spending so much money on a watch the fact that they are anything but accurate has put me right off them for good. Give me a quartz watch any day and let the Rolex owners miss their train

Michael.

 

i just use my phone - watches give me a rash and i'm not actually that bothered about time most of the time.
cheers


julian

 

If I had to buy a new watch, I'd be getting a radio-controlled one which takes the time from a code anchored to an atomic clock. Works fine and you never have to reset your time when summer time begins or ends.

 

Julian,

this little gem

had me smile. How exactly would you describe a bad wine?

 

Quartz all the way I'm afraid. I've owned various expensive Swiss mechanical watches, but the watch I rely on is a $30 Citizen, which has proved more accurate and far more reliable than my Speedmaster over the years...

 

markus,
how about:
STANLEY WHITE LAMBRUSCO
White Lambrusco? I kind of like this stuff, normally - but normally it's red, comes in a bottle and is lightly carbonated. Carbonating anything in a bladder would be stupid - it would create an effect not dissimilar to that caused by the build-up of gasses in the stomach of a decaying corpse. And coincidentally, decaying corpses is the image which springs to mind when confronting this horror of a wine. Not your average decaying corpse eiother, but a huge magot-ridden elephant corpse, liquefying in the sun. Ewwwww, yuck!

btw. these are quotes from a book not original witticisms by me - the author is australian which probably explains a lot.
cheers


julian

 

Make it your goal in life to have a lifestyle that requires a timepiece with just an hour hand.

Bob

 

I've got a Tissot - had a few years now and I've no complaints about it...

 

I'm with Julian. Don't wear a watch, keep time with mobile phone.

 

never worn a watch. time isnt that important

 

I've worn Quartz watches for over 20 years, but I can understand the attraction of mechanical watches. It is obviously much greater engineering feat to make a mechanical watch accurate than a Quartz watch which is reflected in price. Anyone with an engineering background will I suppose find mechanical watches more fascinating. I won't mention words like jewellary, snobbery or status. oops

 

I do find mechanical watches fascinating and a lot of them look rather nice too but if they can't keep the time accurately enough then they're just expensive toys or jewellry.

Accurately enough to me is +/- 1 minute every 6 months since I have to set the time every 6 months when the clocks change anyway. Even the super accurate Breitlings can still lose/gain as much as 15 minutes over a 6 month period.

I've been leaning towards a Tissot watch - a cut above a Swatch (same company though) and mostly quartz movements. Quite like the idea of the new Titanium "T-Touch" watch which has a touch sensitive face allowing you to select its different functions: Alarm, Stopwatch, Altimeter, Barometer, Compass . I'm not sure about its looks though. Sorry, no pics as their site is all Flash .

Michael.

 

I'm afraid I like more traditional styles. What you are describing is not a watch. You don't dream about being a 00 number, do you?

 

i have a swiss railway watch - Mondaine . it's reliable,accurate,lovely looking and not expensive

 

I really like those Mondaine watches. In fact I have one, amonst the 5 or 6 watches I own :shame: . However, I really need a watch that displays the date and the Mondaine doesn't.

Dev - the Tissot T-Touch is a bit excessive I know. A bit too "G-shock" perhaps. I'll probably just end up with a nice Swatch.

Michael.

 

Michael, this is then one I've got - http://www.tissot.ch/cgi-bin/cgi2.e...fam=1660&idcol=3&famindex=0&SECT=PROD_PRODUCT

I think it looks very nice!

 

think of them as set amps. not for everyone, but they have a certain charm and appeal. aesthetics over absolute truth...

 

I'm from an engineering background, and don't find them particularly fascinating.... more pointless. We've found a better way to do it....

 

This Tissot is the kind of thing I'm after.

However, if you look closely, particularly observing the position of the date window and the positioning of the chronograph dials, and then bear in mind that Tissot is now part of the Swatch group, it's fairly clear that the mechanism is the same one that Swatch use for all their "Irony" chronograph range which are substantially cheaper.

Allthough IMO no Swatch looks as good as that and the Tissot case etc. is better made (eg: it's water resitant to 50m instead of 30m for the Swatch). I suppose all industries do the same thing, for example, the Jaguar X-Type is just a Ford Mondeo with a new body.

Michael.

 

I inherited a classic Rolex Oyster Date for my 18th Birthday and for while wore it all day everyday. After a number of years and 2 quite expensive services I stopped wearing it due to poor timing.

I now wear the Nike produced Lance Armstrong limited edition that includes Alarm, Stopwatch, Altimeter, Barometer, Compass amongst other things. It doesn't lose time, has two selectable time zones, (very useful for my current commute) and is also worn by a 6 times TdF champion.