Best 44mm watches

A 200m diver's watch with a screw-down crown on the most widely serviced mechanical caliber in the US, with a published $176 overhaul and three years of warranty.

Seiko's 45mm figure is misleading in a good way: the cushion case has no protruding lugs, so it wears smaller. Hardlex rather than sapphire.

Seiko rates this at 200m as a diver's watch, not merely water-resistant — screw-down crown, screw case back, unidirectional bezel. The 45mm figure is misleading: the cushion case has no protruding lugs.

Radio-synchronized time, a chronograph, a perpetual calendar and a second time zone behind sapphire, rated 200m, with five years of warranty.

A module rather than a movement: when it stops being made, the watch is finished.

It sets itself by radio, runs on light and is rated to 200m behind sapphire — and it is a module, not a movement. When the module stops being made, the watch is finished, however good the case still is.

A Swiss quartz chronograph with sapphire and 100m — and at 11.02mm, thin enough that 45mm wears flatter than you expect.

Two years of warranty; Tissot does not publish the lug-to-lug.

Tissot publishes a US service price list, which almost no chronograph maker at this level does, and PowerDrive drives the hands back to zero electronically instead of through a column wheel. Cheap to keep, and 45mm across.

Radio-controlled time in five zones, a 1/20-second chronograph and a perpetual calendar behind sapphire, rated 200m.

A 23mm lug width — the least common strap size on this site.

Sapphire, 200m, a perpetual calendar and a chronograph that runs on light — and a 23mm lug width, which is the least common strap size on this site. It is a module rather than a movement, so its long-term future depends on Citizen continuing to support the H800.

The only openworked watch on this site rated 100m with a screw-down crown, with sapphire and a power-reserve indicator on an in-house movement.

43.2mm and 13.7mm thick with a 21mm lug width, and Orient's page states two years of warranty beside copy referring to three.

The only openworked watch on this site rated to 100m with a screw-down crown, which is what makes it wearable rather than ornamental. The 21mm lug width is the catch: strap shopping will cost you more and take longer, forever.

A 44mm diver in surface-hardened Super Titanium, rated 200m and light-powered, with Citizen's five-year warranty — the lightest way to wear this size.

Mineral glass.

Citizen's Super Titanium is surface-hardened, which is the point — plain titanium marks more easily than steel, and this does not. It is the closest thing on this list to a watch you can stop thinking about.

The steel Promaster Diver: 200m, light power and five years of warranty on a 20mm strap.

Mineral glass, and heavier than the titanium version.

The strongest argument for this watch is the one Citizen makes on its own page: nothing to replace, five years of cover. The argument against it is the mineral crystal, which will scratch where sapphire would not.