Q Timex GMT vs Q Timex Chronograph

The cheapest way to get a second time zone on your wrist, by a wide margin. Every other GMT on this site costs several times as much, and most of them are mechanical watches with service bills attached.

At 38mm and 12.5mm it is the smaller and thinner of the two, which makes it the easier of the pair to wear on a slim wrist. The 18mm lug width is standard, so straps are cheap and permanent.

The acrylic crystal is not a flaw to apologize for: it scratches immediately and polishes out with paste, so the watch looks new again for the cost of a tube of polish. That is why acrylic scores 1.8 of 2.5 here while mineral scores 1.0.

The real limits are the warranty and the water rating. Timex states one year and explicitly excludes the crystal, the strap, the case and the battery — which is most of what fails — and 50m means handwashing, not swimming. It scores 5.6.

A quartz GMT at 38mm, with an acrylic crystal you can polish and a battery any shop can change. It is not built like the mechanical GMTs on this site, but nothing about it is expensive to keep running.

The same proposition with a different dial: a 40mm quartz chronograph with a tachymeter bezel, an acrylic crystal and an 18mm standard lug width, on the same 50m rating.

A quartz chronograph is the cheap way into the complication for a reason — there is no column wheel to service and no mechanical module to rebuild, so the running cost is a battery. Our mechanical chronographs cost several times this and carry a service bill about 50% higher than a three-hand watch.

It is the bigger and thicker of the two: 40mm and 13.5mm, which is what the chronograph module costs in height. Timex states a one-year limited warranty covering defects in materials and workmanship on this product page.

It scores 5.6, exactly the same as the GMT, because every specification our formula reads is identical except the case dimensions, which the formula does not score.

A quartz chronograph at 40mm on an 18mm bracelet, with an acrylic crystal that polishes back when it scratches and a battery any shop can change. 50m and a one-year warranty are the limits.

If you like the mid-century Timex look and would rather have a mechanical watch, this is the one: a 40mm automatic under an acrylic crystal, with a 20mm standard lug width — an even width, where both Q models use 18mm.

A mechanical movement can be stripped and rebuilt indefinitely, which is worth the full 2.5 of 2.5 in our formula against quartz's 1.6, and it lifts this to 6.5 — the highest of the three Timexes here.

The catch is that Timex does not publish the caliber. You cannot look up what is inside, which means you cannot price a service before buying, and Timex publishes no service pricing either. The one-year warranty carries the same exclusions.

Acrylic reads as a downgrade and mostly is not: it scratches easily and polishes out with a cloth and a tube of paste, which sapphire does not. On a watch you intend to keep for decades, that is a feature.