I often see watch enthusiasts here and on YouTube forgetting some essencial things:
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Watches are an object in which "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder". It's not brand name or bragging credentials that make a watch good or even the design. It's the personal taste of each of us
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The price doesn't make a watch better. The variety and styles of watches can appeal to everyone regardless of their budget. Despite this, people buying fashion watches or less expensive brands, still face backlash
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Mechanical watches are not always better than quartz and quartz isn't always better than mechanical. They cater to different types of audience. Usually the community acts like mechanical is always inherently better.
All things considered, it's wonderful that there's a brand of watches out there that provides finish and quality that matches a Longines or JLC for a quarter of the price and it makes its own movements for mechanical watches: Seiko.
Seiko, is what the entire Swatch group no longer is. It's a independent watchmaker. Their Grand Seiko models, rival and even surpass Rolex watches in finish, quality, dial textures and more.
If Seiko was a Swiss brand, it would be the world's biggest and most valued watchmaker
Having said that, why is it then that there's so so many complaints about: the glass type they use, the Quality control which fails slightly in like 1/1000 watches? Why does anyone think Citizen can beat Seiko when Citizen's movements are now a long way from those of Seiko?
Why aren't more people grateful that a brand like this even exists?
Brings me to the final point: - Watches don't have to say "Swiss made" to be good. Something that despite true the community also acts like isn't true.
As a newbie shopping for watches, I've actually found Seiko to be mostly... meh to terrible. All their <$500 watches are Hardlex. The exact watch line that once was $200 is now $600. They've discontinued popular models like the SARB for god knows why.
None of their watches are very good value in comparison with the rest of the market, considering microbrands and chinese homages are selling watches with sapphire crystal for $200-300.
I've found Citizen and Orient to simply be better in that price point.
Grand Seiko however, huge fan. I was blown away by their watches and they're easily worth *more* than their price. But they are also slowly increasing their price over the years too so who knows how long this will last.
Hardlex at the ~500€ price point isn't great. However, I wanted a small-ish quartz diver, and am really (really!) happy with my Seiko SNE:
The marked 529€ price is too high for it but I got it for under 285€ shipped, and it can be had for about 300€ pretty much at any given time. I say it's excellent value. I'm not sure I know a comparable quartz diver.