Is the Tissot Le Locle worth it?

100m, a published +25/-15 second daily tolerance and a three-year warranty, with a published $296 overhaul.

13mm thick, so it is a dress watch by dial rather than by profile.

This is the Presage with the Prospex specification sheet: dual-curved sapphire, 100m, 72 hours and a published +25 to -15 seconds a day, on the 6R family's published $296 service path. It is 13mm thick, which is the price of all that on a dress watch.

The same Powermatic-family movement and Nivachron spring with 100m instead of 30m, which makes it a watch you can wear without thinking about rain or a sink.

1.75mm thicker, and the open-heart aperture is dial decoration the Le Locle does without.

The quick-release bracelet is the detail worth paying for: this is one of the few Swiss automatics at this level you can re-strap in thirty seconds without a tool.

100m and sapphire at 10.93mm, with the same published $210 service price — the more practical Tissot by a distance.

The integrated bracelet takes a 12mm interlug fitting rather than a standard strap, so you keep the bracelet it came with.

Tissot publishes a US complete-service price of $210 for a mechanical two-or-three-hand watch, which makes this the most predictable Swiss automatic here to own. The 12mm lug width is not a strap size — the bracelet is part of the case.

9.75mm is what makes this watch work: it goes under a buttoned cuff without catching, which is the single job a dress watch exists to do and which most automatics fail.

The Powermatic 80 runs 80 hours with a Nivachron balance spring, and Tissot publishes $210 for a complete service with 24 months of warranty on the work — the clearest cost-to-keep statement of any Swiss brand we cover.

30m rating and a 19mm lug width are the two real costs. 30m means rain and hand-washing only; 19mm is an odd strap size that narrows every future purchase.

Under 10mm thick with 80 hours of reserve is the combination that makes a dress watch practical — put it down on Friday and it is still running Monday. 30m means keep it off in the shower.

The cheapest way into a proper dress automatic: an in-house hacking, hand-winding Orient at 38.4mm with a 44mm lug-to-lug.

A mineral crystal that cannot be polished back, and the same 30m limitation.

A 44mm lug-to-lug is genuinely small by modern standards, and this is the Bambino to buy if the 40.5mm versions never sat right. The domed mineral crystal is the compromise, and it is the one Orient never fixes on this line.