Sports Watches

The useful distinction is between watches designed for a sport and watches styled after one. A dive bezel that rotates and a chronograph with working pushers are tools; the same shapes appear on plenty of watches where they are decoration. Neither is wrong, but they justify very different prices.

What to look at: water resistance of at least 100 metres for anything you will swim in, a screw-down crown if you will, lume that still reads after a few hours, and a bracelet you can adjust on the wrist rather than at a bench. The section runs from Casio at GBP 100 to Zenith and Blancpain in the tens of thousands, with the median around GBP 700.

Sports Watches holds 735 models across 47 brands, from £35 to £49,200. Half cost less than £990, and a quarter less than £425. 443 of 735 are automatic. 412 are stocked by more than one retailer, giving 1191 offers in total. Tissot lists more references here than any other brand. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.