Best Watch Brands for Men

Seiko's modern 5 Sports: a 100m water-resistant automatic in a diver-style case, with a day-date display and a movement that both hand-winds and hacks.

Seiko is the answer to this question more often than any other brand, and the 5 Sports is why. The company makes its own movements, its own cases and even its own hairsprings, which almost no watchmaker at any price still does, and it passes that vertical integration straight into watches that cost less than a phone. What that buys the recipient is a genuine automatic — wound by the motion of the wrist, no battery to replace — in a 100 meter case with dozens of dial colors, so a taste can be matched rather than guessed. For a gift, Seiko also carries the right amount of recognition: a watch person is pleased, and a non-watch person has heard the name. Two honest limits. The 5 Sports wears larger than its stated diameter suggests, so it is not the pick for a slim wrist, and mechanical accuracy drifts by a few seconds a day, which is normal and worth saying out loud when you hand it over.

A full-size analog dive-style watch with 200 meters of water resistance, a rotating bezel and a screw-down crown.

Casio is the brand that makes the under-$50 shelf worth shopping at all, and the MDV-106 Duro is the most watch anyone sells for the money. It is a real dive watch — 200 meters of water resistance, a screw-down crown, a rotating bezel that actually clicks — at a price where its rivals are costume jewelry. Casio's whole business is building things to a specification and then not changing them for decades, which is why the Duro, the F-91W and the G-Shock all still exist in close to their original form. For a gift that is unusually valuable: the watch you buy today can still be strapped and serviced in five years because it is still being made. The trade is the finishing, which is adequate rather than nice, and the lume, which fades faster than a Seiko's.

A simple field-style watch on a slip-through fabric strap, with Timex's Indiglo backlight that lights the whole dial.

Timex is an American brand that has spent a century making simple, cheap, legible watches, and the Weekender is the best gift in its range for one structural reason: the slip-through fabric strap. There are no fixed holes to miss and no bracelet links to remove, so it fits any wrist out of the box — which makes Timex the brand to pick when you cannot measure or ask. The strap also pulls off in seconds without tools, so one watch becomes several looks for pocket money and a wrong-color strap is a trivial fix rather than a returned gift. Indiglo lights the whole dial instead of glowing from one edge, which remains the best night-reading system at this price. It ticks audibly in a quiet room, and fabric is comfortable but never formal.

A dress watch with a domed crystal, applied numerals and an in-house automatic movement, on a leather strap.

Orient is Japanese, owned by Seiko's parent company, and it does one thing better than anybody: sell a genuine in-house automatic in a properly finished dress case for well under the price such a watch normally commands. The Bambino is the watch that reputation rests on — a domed crystal, a clean dial, a leather strap and a mechanical movement in a dress case. It looks considerably more expensive than it is, which is a real virtue in a gift, and it is the watch most commonly recommended to somebody buying their first mechanical watch. Orient's weakness is awareness: the recipient almost certainly has not heard the name, so this is the pick when the watch will speak for itself rather than the box. The Bambino also wears bigger than its number because of the wide bezel and domed crystal.

A slim steel dress watch powered by Citizen's Eco-Drive technology, which runs on any light and never needs a battery change.

Citizen's distinguishing technology is Eco-Drive, and it is the most genuinely useful thing on this page. The dial is a solar cell: any light at all charges the watch, it holds months of reserve in the dark, and there is no battery to replace and nothing to wind. For a gift that removes the two most common reasons a watch ends up in a drawer — a dead cell nobody got round to replacing, or an automatic that kept stopping. The Corso is the dress-leaning version: a plain legible dial, a steel case, a date window, and nothing that dates. It is the watch to give somebody who wants objects to simply work. The honest caveat is that it is quartz, so a recipient specifically hoping for a mechanical watch will be disappointed, and it does need to see daylight occasionally — months shut in a drawer will stop it.

Bulova's mainstream dress and dress-sport line: steel cases, a wide spread of dial designs, mostly quartz.

Bulova is one of the oldest American watch names, it has genuine history in the US space program, and it is now the brand that puts a familiar label on a sub-$200 watch. That is a narrower virtue than Seiko's or Citizen's, but it is a real one for gifting: some recipients care that the name on the dial means something to their father, and Bulova is the cheapest way to satisfy that. The Classic is exactly what it says — a steel case, a clean dial, a date, no surprises — and it is the sort of watch that looks right on anybody between twenty-five and seventy-five. The limitation is that Bulova's catalog is enormous and uneven, with genuinely good pieces sitting beside forgettable fashion models, so this is a brand where the specific reference matters more than the badge.

A Swiss automatic with a 1970s-style integrated bracelet — the case and bracelet are designed as one piece — running Tissot's Powermatic 80 movement with an 80-hour power reserve.

Tissot is the brand that answers the question most buyers eventually ask: what is the cheapest Swiss watch that is actually good. The PRX Powermatic 80 is the answer, and it is the watch that made Tissot interesting again — a seventies-style integrated steel bracelet case, a Swiss automatic movement, and an 80-hour power reserve that means a weekend off the wrist does not stop it. That reserve is the specification that matters most in a gift, because it removes the usual annoyance of owning an automatic. The bracelet is integrated, which looks superb and means it cannot be swapped for a different strap, so the recipient is committing to the look. It also wears flatter and wider than its diameter suggests, which suits a medium to larger wrist better than a slim one.

A Swiss-made military-styled field watch with a sapphire crystal and an automatic movement carrying an 80-hour power reserve.

Hamilton is an American brand now Swiss-made, and it has the most legitimate military history of anything here — it actually supplied field watches to the US forces rather than borrowing the styling later. The Khaki Field Auto is the reference version of the plainest, most useful watch style there is: Swiss automatic, sapphire crystal, an 80-hour power reserve, and the most legible dial on this entire page by a clear margin. This is the pick when the watch is marking something and is meant to be worn for twenty years rather than two. It is deliberately plain, which is the whole point of the style and will still disappoint a recipient hoping for something showy, and sapphire plus Swiss assembly accounts for most of why it costs several times the Seiko.