Best watches under $200

Sapphire at this price is genuinely unusual, and it is the specification that decides how this watch looks in fifteen years. 100m means you can swim in it. Solar means no battery, ever.

36mm across and 44.5mm lug-to-lug makes it the smallest genuinely good watch on the site, which for anyone who finds most watches too big is the whole argument.

The one-year Timex warranty, excluding the crystal, strap, case and battery, is the reason it does not score higher. On a watch with no serviceable movement, that matters less than it would elsewhere.

The smallest genuinely good watch here. Sapphire, solar, 100m and 44.5mm across the lugs — if you have a small wrist and want to stop thinking about batteries, start here.

Acrylic reads as the cheap option and on a long horizon it quietly is not. It scratches within a week and every one of those marks comes out with a cloth and a tube of paste — for a few dollars, forever. Sapphire cannot be polished at all.

40mm and 13mm thick with a 20mm lug width, in a mid-century style that has aged well precisely because it is plain.

50m and no named caliber are the real limits. You cannot look up what a service costs because Timex does not say what is inside.

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.

There is very little on this watch that can go wrong. No winding, no battery, 100m of water resistance, an 18mm lug width and the longest warranty of any brand on this site.

37mm on a nylon strap is unobtrusive in a way most watches at this price are not, and the plain field dial will not date.

Mineral crystal is the compromise, and it is the honest one at this price. It will collect marks that sapphire would not.

37mm, 18mm lugs, 100m, no battery, five years of cover. There is very little here to go wrong and almost nothing that will date.

An in-house hacking, hand-windable automatic with a three-year warranty at this price is remarkable, and Version 7 finally fixes the size problem that dogged the Bambino line — 38.4mm across and 44mm lug-to-lug is genuinely small.

The domed mineral crystal is what Orient never fixes here. Under a shirt cuff it will pick up marks that cannot be polished out.

30m means rain and hand-washing. This is a second watch, not an only one, and buying it as an only one is the most common mistake made with this model.

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.

An aperture in the dial showing the balance wheel oscillating is, for a lot of people, the thing that makes a mechanical watch click. At this price it is an unusually cheap way to get it.

40.5mm and 46mm lug-to-lug, 12mm thick, on the same three-year Orient warranty as the rest of the line.

Same caveats as the Bambino above — domed mineral, 30m, 21mm lugs — plus one more: an open dial is a taste that dates faster than a plain one.

The aperture is the reason to buy it and the reason to think twice — an open dial is a taste that dates faster than a plain one. The movement underneath carries the same three-year Orient warranty as the rest of the line.

The cheapest way on this site to get a second time zone on your wrist. 38mm, a steel case, an 18mm lug width, and a battery any shop can change for a few dollars.

The acrylic crystal is a genuine plus on a watch at this price — it will scratch, and you can polish it out yourself indefinitely.

50m and a one-year warranty are the limits. It is not built like the mechanical GMTs on this site, and nothing about it is expensive to keep running.

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.