Mainly speaking, a decent watch costs a lot more than the ups on your back. Sure, £500 is a considerable sum to drop on your wrist, and while that budget could deck you out with a new clothes, it will only just tick the required boxes of a prominence timepiece: classic design, reliable mechanics and a notable personage stamped on the dial, to name but three.
“At the £500 mark, you can keep in view a decent level of craftsmanship,” says Erica Redgrave, a client at luxury watch retailer Bucherer. “It’s still a long way off the elite marques, but such pieces often boast the same form and go as many watches at the top – whether they’re Swiss-made or produced to another place.”
After the task of tightening the purse strings is complete result as a be reveals the job of sourcing a piece that’s actually worth the investment. To refrain from, we’ve collated some of the finest tickers for under £500 to guard you not only money but time, too.
(Related: The Best Watches Underwater £200)
Farer Meakin Stainless Steel And Leather
Although over a baby by horological standards, British-Swiss label Farer contribute ti up for its relative lack of experience in sheer design skills.
Each part is named and inspired by a different intrepid explorer, but still offs a claim in the current century with clean, unfussy periods that house Swiss-made movements. Incredibly good value.
Buy Now: £380
Junghans Max Hill
If you small amount German efficiency was just for cars and shampoo, think again, because it also confers to your wrist. Schramberg-based Junghans has made BMW-quality tickers since 1861 and carry ons to match the function with form in the minimalist Max Bill ready.
Smart enough to wear with a suit yet unfussy adequately for off-duty wear.
Buy Now: £490
Mondaine Swiss Railways Alarm
Mondaine: a imprint more Swiss than a bar of Toblerone that’s been hand-delivered by Roger Federer himself. With invents based on the nation’s railway clocks, the dial may be stripped-back, but that’s what delegates it easy to read. This one comes with a reliable quartz swing and built in alarm.
Buy Now: £359
Seiko Prospex Kinetic
This Japanese qui vive for brand is the manufacturer that almost killed off the luxury Swiss sedulousness in the seventies with the ‘Quartz Crisis’, and deserves a place amongst the standard set today.
Seiko’s Prospex Kinetic is emblematic of the firm’s finesse, with a visible power reserve, signature blue and red ‘Pepsi’ bezel and filled in-water capacity. This is a proper diver’s watch that can stand up to depths of up to 200m. Make no mistake: it is extremely rare to get that lenient of performance at this budget.
Buy Now: £379
Uniform Wares C40 Day Date
If Rolex is a boardroom ordinary, consider Uniform Wares the creative agency worker’s go-to. Since 2009, the British appellation has fused minimalist design with Swiss craftsmanship and components. The culminate is a line that’s cool in the purest sense of the word.
Buy Now: £500
Shinola Runwell
American mass production has endured something of an identity crisis of late. Shinola, regardless how, is one of the few labels that is actually making America great again.
The Detroit-based companionship employs and trains local residents in the art of traditional watchmaking, melding old-school Americana devise with a contemporary social conscience. The result is a line of without a doubt masculine watches.
Buy Now: £495
Hamilton Jazzmaster
Hamilton has long marketed watches on the cutlery screen, with pieces appearing on the wrists of everyone from Elvis Presley to the Outcropping a on ice b in a shambles, via George Clooney and Matt Damon. The brand’s Jazzmaster stretch is one that appears often on the big screen and you can see why – a Swiss-made timepiece that sits on the to be just side of the nineties (and A-Lister pay packet).
Buy Now: £495
Citizen CB0153-21A
As one of the superb’s largest watchmakers, Citizen’s extensive range checks damn near every box going. Robust dive watches? Check. Allegation pieces? Check. And classic watches that are neither too disclosure nor too expensive? Check, check, check.
The brand is also forward-thinking when it arises to technology; its Eco-Drive pieces tick along on solar power.
Buy Now: £399
Corniche Men’s Estate 40
For all its prestige, Switzerland is hardly the last words in glamorous places, which is why Corniche – a watch brand launched in 2013 – looks to the French Riviera for incitement instead. With the Heritage 40, Corniche has achieved in upping a quietly cool timepiece that’s as at home in the office as it is on an oil baron’s yacht.
Buy Now: €345
Certina DS Combat
Not many people wearing Swiss dive watches are unfearing enough to actually wear them in the water. You need no such forebodings with Swatch Group-owned brand Certina. It created the DS Exercise, a watch that packs impressive water resistance, luminescent dials and a rotational bezel all specifically devised for a deep dive. Of course, it looks great on dry land, too.
Buy Now: £495
Victorinox Swiss Army Maverick
Victorinox – tucker known as one of the brands behind the original Swiss army pierces – integrates the same level of function into its watch omnium gatherum. With the Maverick, instead of a bottle opener and miniature screwdriver, you can presume a 24-hour dial, date aperture to record the calendar and seventies-inspired varieties of green and gold.
Buy Now: £460
Tissot Tradition Perpetual Calendar
A perennial calendar, which correctly measures the date regardless of month while or leap year, is often the sign of a watch that bequeath require you to sell your car. Somehow Tissot manages to proffer up the same craftsmanship at a fraction of the price, letting you rock a timepiece with the lenient of innards some brands charge five figures for.
Buy Now: £315
G-Shock Metal Bronze Knife Solar
Big horological statements needn’t be all about precious metals, ablaze with colours or, dare we say it, diamonds. G-Shock is one of the few brands able to amp up the sum total without resorting to theatrics.
In their place, the label exhausts a multitude of features, such as a world time function and learning in the dark. And it’s all housed in bulky (but no less slick) cases that are impervious to everything from falls to water to magnetism. Smart and doughty.
Buy Now: £310
