Automatic Watches Under £500

Expect accuracy in the region of fifteen to twenty-five seconds a day and a power reserve around forty hours. What you are buying is the mechanism itself: several hundred parts, wound by your own movement, running without a battery. Whether that appeals more than quartz precision is a question about the object rather than the specification.

Seiko dominates this bracket on merit, but Tissot brings Swiss assembly, Citizen brings the Miyota calibres that power much of the industry, and Rotary and Timex both make a serious case at the entry point.

Automatic Watches Under £500 holds 396 models across 34 brands, from £25 to £499. Half cost less than £295, and a quarter less than £219. 396 of 396 are automatic. 88 are stocked by more than one retailer, giving 510 offers in total. Seiko lists more references here than any other brand. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.