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Watch Buying Guide
The first thing to consider when buying a watch is, what is its purpose? Will you use it to time your lap speed, your flying speed, or your lunch hour? The wide availability of watch styles and features allows you to pick the watch that fits your needs, style, and taste perfectly.
Form & Function
This list below will help you choose the right features for your purposes:
Casual
Look for casual features that ensure you can keep your mind on taking it easy. Choose a watch with a comfortable band and higher water resistance so you don't have to worry about your watch when you're reaching in the cooler for a drink or slipping in for a swim. View our casual Skagen watches for men and women.
Dressy
For a more formal look, choose a watch that matches your attire. A stainless steel bracelet band and a black face perfectly match a black sweater and gray pants. Or if you wear a leather belt, choose a watch with a matching black or brown leather band. Michele and Bulova watches for women feature luxury touches like diamond and gemstone bezels, and Skagen offers watches for men and women with cutting-edge Scandinavian design.
Diving
Look for screw-down crowns and casebacks and extreme water resistance. Also, a unidirectional bezel helps you keep an eye on how long you've been underwater. View our Seiko and Chase-Durer watches for men featuring screw-down casebacks and crowns, and water resistance to at least 330 feet or deeper.
Racing
Whether you're in a car, a plane, on a bicycle, or on foot, these watches will help you measure your time. To find your miles per hour, rotate the tachymeter to target your exact speed, then set the elapsed timer to pinpoint the distance you covered. Some watches even store lap times and split times. View our men's racing watches by Festina, the official racing watch of the Tour de France, and our Chase-Durer watches for men, built specifically for racing and flying with navigational slide rule bezels and tachymeters that help you measure speed over time.
Case
This is the watch's frame. When it comes to analog watches, the case can be round, rectangular, square, and sometimes even polygonal. The case finish can be shiny, matte, patterned, or inlaid with jewels and other crystals (although I can't recommend such a look -- unless pimpin' is your thing).
For analog watches, the case is usually made of a metal -- steel, titanium, gold, silver, and platinum being the most common. Getting a watch with a case (and band) made from the latter three precious metals is going to cost you a pretty penny, but many watchmakers mix the precious metal with less valuable alloys for a more affordable timepiece.
Here are some common watch "Gold Marks" according to The Encyclopedia of Men's Clothes:
18K or 750 means the piece is about 75% pure gold.
14K or 585 means it's about 58% gold.
10K signifies it's about 42% gold.
Watch crystal
This transparent cover protects the watch face. It can be made from plexiglass, mineral (traditional) glass or synthetic sapphire -- an ultra-hard, clear, man-made crystal.
Plexiglass is the cheapest of watch "crystals." It's the least likely to shatter, but the most likely to scratch.
Mineral glass, on the other hand, is more likely to shatter, but less likely to scratch.
Synthetic sapphire costs the most, but it's the most scratch-resistant. Of course, there's a catch: Synthetic sapphire breaks quite easily.
Band type
If you have an analog timepiece (whether quartz-powered or hand-wound), your watchband will either be made of leather (usually black or brown) or the same kind of metal used on the case.
Digital watches, such as sports models and gadget watches, usually have plastic bands.nontraditional watch types Sports
Sports watches are very sleek, very durable and made from high-quality plastic composites. The most common sports watch is the classic water-resistant diving watch. Nowadays, the market is packed to the gills with such timepieces. Sports watches can incorporate odometers, altimeters, compasses, GPS technology, blood pressure and pulse monitors, and a range of other gadgets for the guy leading an active lifestyle.
Two good brands to look at are Nike and Timex. Both companies produce diverse, feature-laden lines that are relatively affordable and quite durable.
Gadget
Gadget watches are highly functional for the student, techie or engineer. They contain even more tech goodies (such as calculators, digital cameras or e-mail applications) than their loaded sports model cousins. Keep in mind, however, that gadget watches are conversation pieces that usually only attract the interest of other tech-savvy guys. They're usually not a good bet for picking up women.
Form & Function
This list below will help you choose the right features for your purposes:
Casual
Look for casual features that ensure you can keep your mind on taking it easy. Choose a watch with a comfortable band and higher water resistance so you don't have to worry about your watch when you're reaching in the cooler for a drink or slipping in for a swim. View our casual Skagen watches for men and women.
Dressy
For a more formal look, choose a watch that matches your attire. A stainless steel bracelet band and a black face perfectly match a black sweater and gray pants. Or if you wear a leather belt, choose a watch with a matching black or brown leather band. Michele and Bulova watches for women feature luxury touches like diamond and gemstone bezels, and Skagen offers watches for men and women with cutting-edge Scandinavian design.
Diving
Look for screw-down crowns and casebacks and extreme water resistance. Also, a unidirectional bezel helps you keep an eye on how long you've been underwater. View our Seiko and Chase-Durer watches for men featuring screw-down casebacks and crowns, and water resistance to at least 330 feet or deeper.
Racing
Whether you're in a car, a plane, on a bicycle, or on foot, these watches will help you measure your time. To find your miles per hour, rotate the tachymeter to target your exact speed, then set the elapsed timer to pinpoint the distance you covered. Some watches even store lap times and split times. View our men's racing watches by Festina, the official racing watch of the Tour de France, and our Chase-Durer watches for men, built specifically for racing and flying with navigational slide rule bezels and tachymeters that help you measure speed over time.
Case
This is the watch's frame. When it comes to analog watches, the case can be round, rectangular, square, and sometimes even polygonal. The case finish can be shiny, matte, patterned, or inlaid with jewels and other crystals (although I can't recommend such a look -- unless pimpin' is your thing).
For analog watches, the case is usually made of a metal -- steel, titanium, gold, silver, and platinum being the most common. Getting a watch with a case (and band) made from the latter three precious metals is going to cost you a pretty penny, but many watchmakers mix the precious metal with less valuable alloys for a more affordable timepiece.
Here are some common watch "Gold Marks" according to The Encyclopedia of Men's Clothes:
18K or 750 means the piece is about 75% pure gold.
14K or 585 means it's about 58% gold.
10K signifies it's about 42% gold.
Watch crystal
This transparent cover protects the watch face. It can be made from plexiglass, mineral (traditional) glass or synthetic sapphire -- an ultra-hard, clear, man-made crystal.
Plexiglass is the cheapest of watch "crystals." It's the least likely to shatter, but the most likely to scratch.
Mineral glass, on the other hand, is more likely to shatter, but less likely to scratch.
Synthetic sapphire costs the most, but it's the most scratch-resistant. Of course, there's a catch: Synthetic sapphire breaks quite easily.
Band type
If you have an analog timepiece (whether quartz-powered or hand-wound), your watchband will either be made of leather (usually black or brown) or the same kind of metal used on the case.
Digital watches, such as sports models and gadget watches, usually have plastic bands.nontraditional watch types Sports
Sports watches are very sleek, very durable and made from high-quality plastic composites. The most common sports watch is the classic water-resistant diving watch. Nowadays, the market is packed to the gills with such timepieces. Sports watches can incorporate odometers, altimeters, compasses, GPS technology, blood pressure and pulse monitors, and a range of other gadgets for the guy leading an active lifestyle.
Two good brands to look at are Nike and Timex. Both companies produce diverse, feature-laden lines that are relatively affordable and quite durable.
Gadget
Gadget watches are highly functional for the student, techie or engineer. They contain even more tech goodies (such as calculators, digital cameras or e-mail applications) than their loaded sports model cousins. Keep in mind, however, that gadget watches are conversation pieces that usually only attract the interest of other tech-savvy guys. They're usually not a good bet for picking up women.
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