Quartz or automatic?

[parapaul]

For a sub £200 budget, I'd love to get an orange monster. And then probably a black one to keep it company I just love the way they look.

However... In my mind, a watch should tell ME the time, not the other way around. While I can fully appreciate the quality workings encased within a Seiko automatic, the fact that a £10 casio digital watch will tell the time better seems a bit backward.

So...

I don't know if I would probably be better with a kinetic or eco-drive type of watch. I know they're still essentially battery operated but the kinetic is semi-auto (if I understand it right) and the eco-drive is solar powered.

Do Seiko make a watch that looks like the monster but is quartz rather than automatic? Or shall I just get another G-Shock? I've just seen this one on sale for £60

[Debaser]

If you like the look of a Monster but want a more accurate watch, how about this Kinetic? (It even has a nickname - BFK)

SKA367


Edit - just found one with an orange face. There are also ones with a black face or Pepsi bezel.

SBCZ015

Edited by Debaser on Sunday 28th February 11:12

[parapaul]

Hmmm... thanks! Love the orange one.

[ShadownINja]

For all intents and purposes, consider the kinetic an automatic and you'll be in the same situation. Only solar powered watches are the nearest thing to no batteries, but they require a new battery every several years!

[cyberface]

Monsters don't keep such bad time that you need to constantly reset the things. If you need sub-second per day accuracy then you'll be needing atomic-clock watches really, and for a tough one then it's pretty much only Casio with an atomic-radio G-shock that suits.

If it loses or gains 10 seconds or so a day (which is bad) then you only need to really check it once a week. Remember that none of these watches are perpetual calendars, so you are going to *have* to adjust the watch every time you hit a month without 31 days in it. As long as a mechanical watch (with date) is accurate enough so that it's within a minute a month, then it's as good as quartz because you will naturally set it accurately when you next advance the date in a 30-day month, IMO.

I guess it depends on what you need timekeeping *for* - I don't need to know the time to the nearest second, and sub-second accuracy is irrelevant to me. A mechanical watch that lost or gained minutes a day, and hence needed resetting every day, would be a pain in the arse - but any watch with *that* bad timekeeping would be most likely broken.

Remember that with the Seiko automatic movement as in the Monster and plenty of other 'Seiko 5' watches, there's no 'hack' feature so the second hand doesn't stop when setting the time... making it hard to set the time to the exact second anyway.

[NJH]

cyberface said:

If it loses or gains 10 seconds or so a day (which is bad) then you only need to really check it once a week. Remember that none of these watches are perpetual calendars, so you are going to *have* to adjust the watch every time you hit a month without 31 days in it. As long as a mechanical watch (with date) is accurate enough so that it's within a minute a month, then it's as good as quartz because you will naturally set it accurately when you next advance the date in a 30-day month, IMO.

Its amazing how many ppl don't get this, you are of course entirely correct. I bought one of those perpetual calendar Seiko divers last year, didn't like it that much but gave it to my brother for Christmas. He loves the thing and especially loves the fact he doesn't have to fiddle about with it every month.

[ShadownINja]

NJH said:

cyberface said:

If it loses or gains 10 seconds or so a day (which is bad) then you only need to really check it once a week. Remember that none of these watches are perpetual calendars, so you are going to *have* to adjust the watch every time you hit a month without 31 days in it. As long as a mechanical watch (with date) is accurate enough so that it's within a minute a month, then it's as good as quartz because you will naturally set it accurately when you next advance the date in a 30-day month, IMO.

Its amazing how many ppl don't get this, you are of course entirely correct. I bought one of those perpetual calendar Seiko divers last year, didn't like it that much but gave it to my brother for Christmas. He loves the thing and especially loves the fact he doesn't have to fiddle about with it every month.

Only thing is... quickset date kinda ruins the argument.

[cyberface]

ShadownINja said:

NJH said:

cyberface said:

If it loses or gains 10 seconds or so a day (which is bad) then you only need to really check it once a week. Remember that none of these watches are perpetual calendars, so you are going to *have* to adjust the watch every time you hit a month without 31 days in it. As long as a mechanical watch (with date) is accurate enough so that it's within a minute a month, then it's as good as quartz because you will naturally set it accurately when you next advance the date in a 30-day month, IMO.

Its amazing how many ppl don't get this, you are of course entirely correct. I bought one of those perpetual calendar Seiko divers last year, didn't like it that much but gave it to my brother for Christmas. He loves the thing and especially loves the fact he doesn't have to fiddle about with it every month.

Only thing is... quickset date kinda ruins the argument.

If you're being picky, yes. But if you're going to have to unwind the crown and change the date, then the additional effort required to reset the time to the exact time is *very*, very small...

Also, enough people have duffed up the mechanisms in their watches by trying to use 'quickset' date functions when the time is near midnight that I find it's just as easy to ignore the quickset date and just advance the time until the new date is shown. For those of us without GMT functions, it's pretty much essential to do this otherwise you may set your watch to, say, 3 am instead of 3 pm

[ShadownINja]

cyberface said:

If you're being picky, yes. But if you're going to have to unwind the crown and change the date, then the additional effort required to reset the time to the exact time is *very*, very small...

Um... at the risk of being e-punched... it's easy to change a quickset date but a hassle to set the exact time as you have to check with your radio controlled watch/clock, stop your watch on the 12 marker, get the minute hand to line up nicely with a minute market, wait for it to come round to 12 o'clock. Whereas changing the date, you just wind slightly and you're done.

Edit: oops.

Edited by ShadownINja on Monday 1st March 07:44

[cyberface]

ShadownINja said:

cyberface said:

Shadowninja said:

Only thing is... quickset date kinda ruins the argument.

If you're being picky, yes. But if you're going to have to unwind the crown and change the date, then the additional effort required to reset the time to the exact time is *very*, very small...

Um... at the risk of being e-punched... it's easy to change a quickset date but a hassle to set the exact time as you have to check with your radio controlled watch/clock, stop your watch on the 12 marker, get the minute hand to line up nicely with a minute market, wait for it to come round to 12 o'clock. Whereas changing the date, you just wind slightly and you're done.

No e-punch but I'll sort your quotes out for you

Yes, you're right - obviously - but if you have to adjust your watch (however simple a quickset date is) then the extra effort to correct the time is marginal. It's certainly not enough of a reason for me to choose quartz over mechanical, let's put it that way.

[wong]

The Monster has the 7s26 mechanism. This is accurate to +/-15 secs per day. Remember the COSC expensive swiss watches are passed if -4 or +6 secs per day. An average digital will be +/- 1 sec /day. You can get the automatic mechs calibrated to be more accurate.

I have a Rolex GMT - its ~ +4 to 6 secs / day
I have a Monster that is ~ +4 secs/day
I have a Seiko diver SKX007 that is ~ +6 secs / day
However, my wife's Seiko diver (cant remember the model - smaller 007) is ~ - 10 to 15 secs / day.

So, you may get lucky.
The accuracy of an automatic can also vary with what position you leave it when (if ) you take it off at night.

[ShadownINja]

cyberface said:

It's certainly not enough of a reason for me to choose quartz over mechanical, let's put it that way.

Fair enough! Depends what the OPer wants, then.

[parapaul]

Thanks for all the input

Perhaps I was being unfair about the accuracy of the automatic movement - I certainly don't need sub-second accuracy, just the confidence to glance at the watch and know it's the rigt time. I could easily manage +/- a few minutes a month, and had completely neglected to think about the fact I'd be changing the date anyway.

Given that, perhaps the monster I really wanted would be the better option after all. And despite looking, I can't find that orange faced BFK for sale anywhere on t'interweb - just pictures.

I'll see whats left after this month's bills and have a look for one

[NJH]

ShadownINja said:

cyberface said:

If you're being picky, yes. But if you're going to have to unwind the crown and change the date, then the additional effort required to reset the time to the exact time is *very*, very small...

Um... at the risk of being e-punched... it's easy to change a quickset date but a hassle to set the exact time as you have to check with your radio controlled watch/clock, stop your watch on the 12 marker, get the minute hand to line up nicely with a minute market, wait for it to come round to 12 o'clock. Whereas changing the date, you just wind slightly and you're done.

Edit: oops.

Edited by ShadownINja on Monday 1st March 07:44

You could do all that or do like I did this morning with my Oysterquartz, flick the date round then pull out the crown for a second or two to synch it back up again. Easy peasy no need to line hands up if the watch is running fast. I don't know if this is one of the things Cyberface was getting it but with quartz in particular as long as it runs slightly fast there is no need at all for better then say +15s a month accuracy unless the watch has a perpetual calendar. Whether a watch is mechanical or quartz its only really watches that run slow that bug me as you have to reset the time, but its still only a little bit of grief at the end of the day.

[Debaser]

parapaul said:

Thanks for all the input

Perhaps I was being unfair about the accuracy of the automatic movement - I certainly don't need sub-second accuracy, just the confidence to glance at the watch and know it's the rigt time. I could easily manage +/- a few minutes a month, and had completely neglected to think about the fact I'd be changing the date anyway.

Given that, perhaps the monster I really wanted would be the better option after all. And despite looking, I can't find that orange faced BFK for sale anywhere on t'interweb - just pictures.

I'll see whats left after this month's bills and have a look for one

The BFK above is Japan only (I think) so you'd have to get it from somewhere like Seiya or ebay.

http://www.seiyajapan.com/product/S-SBCZ015/SEIKO-...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Seiko-PROSPEX-SBCZ015-Kinetic-...

However I have two watches with the same movement as the Monster. By learning how to leave them overnight I got one of them to be +0 seconds after three months(!) and the other is gaining about 2 seconds a week.

Edited by Debaser on Monday 1st March 13:18

[parapaul]

Debaser said:

The BFK above is Japan only (I think) so you'd have to get it from somewhere like Seiya or ebay.

http://www.seiyajapan.com/product/S-SBCZ015/SEIKO-...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Seiko-PROSPEX-SBCZ015-Kinetic-...

Thanks for the links - I'm suprised, it's nearly double the price of a monster.

Debaser said:

However I have two watches with the same movement as the Monster. By learning how to leave them overnight I got one of them to be +0 seconds after three months(!) and the other is gaining about 2 seconds a week.

[LDN]

Debaser said:

By learning how to leave them overnight I got one of them to be +0 seconds after three months(!) and the other is gaining about 2 seconds a week.

... and how is that?

[ShadownINja]

NJH said:

ShadownINja said:

cyberface said:

If you're being picky, yes. But if you're going to have to unwind the crown and change the date, then the additional effort required to reset the time to the exact time is *very*, very small...

Um... at the risk of being e-punched... it's easy to change a quickset date but a hassle to set the exact time as you have to check with your radio controlled watch/clock, stop your watch on the 12 marker, get the minute hand to line up nicely with a minute market, wait for it to come round to 12 o'clock. Whereas changing the date, you just wind slightly and you're done.

Edit: oops.

Edited by ShadownINja on Monday 1st March 07:44

You could do all that or do like I did this morning with my Oysterquartz, flick the date round then pull out the crown for a second or two to synch it back up again. Easy peasy no need to line hands up if the watch is running fast. I don't know if this is one of the things Cyberface was getting it but with quartz in particular as long as it runs slightly fast there is no need at all for better then say +15s a month accuracy unless the watch has a perpetual calendar. Whether a watch is mechanical or quartz its only really watches that run slow that bug me as you have to reset the time, but its still only a little bit of grief at the end of the day.

You've just proven my point.

[cyberface]

If having the correct time without having to mess about actually *setting* the time on a *wristwatch*, heaven forbid, then it's a damn sight easier to just use your mobile phone, which will (if it's any good) take the time from the GSM network and will be bang-on. It will also have a perpetual calendar.

Most of us here are watch enthusiasts and ease-of-use doesn't really come into it. If I tried to advance the argument to my girlfriend that I was going to add to my small collection (already slated as 'horrendously surplus to requirements' until I bought her a JLC reverso of her own) a Patek perpetual calendar (I think I could get a used one for £30k) purely because advancing the date on my Breguet or JLC or IWC (yadda yadda) was a pain in the arse every month that doesn't have 31 days, then she'd piss herself laughing.

With the exception of my tourbillon, very few cool mechanical complications actually increase the accuracy of timekeeping - most of the time it's down to quality of finish, engineering tolerances, good service and lubrication, and precise calibration by a skilled master watchmaker. Even the tourbillon is marginal on a wristwatch (though it does keep slightly better time than my other watches at the moment - how long it will do that for will be down to how good that Chinese movement really is... and whether it wears itself out).

Even a Patek perpetual calendar will require occasional time setting to an accurate reference... they're not immune to the laws of physics, however expensive they may be. Quartz isn't hyper-accurate either - yes there's a considerable difference between 4 Hz and 32768 Hz, but whilst quartz watches tend not to be affected by position, they most certainly *are* affected by temperature, and a standard-quality quartz movement is expected to lose or gain around a second a day. This *isn't* that far different to a top-quality mechanical movement, precisely regulated.

To really get the benefit of quartz's much higher resonance frequency (which is the fundamental upper limit on timekeeping accuracy, hence atomic clocks becoming more accurate as materials are chosen that have higher and higher resonant frequencies, in the order of GHz these days), you also need to either compensate for temperature (silicon dioxide is readily affected by temperature) or use a radio to reset the watch every day to some super-accurate time source. Hence the 'atomic clock-driven' watches on the market, which really *will* be bang-on and never need setting.

If the choice is between a Monster and a quartz equivalent that *hasn't* got temperature compensation or radio atomic-clock control, then the case for quartz is much weaker if you're into watches at all... however, that Casio may very well be available with radio atomic-clock control, in which case it will be perfectly accurate. If not, and it's a cheap Casio quartz module with no temperature compensation... get the Monster. No contest.

I have a quartz Swatch with Snowpass for my ski trips. It keeps crap time, because it's having to deal with temperature changes from warm room temperature to well below zero every day (I only use it skiing). But not as shockingly bad as the time I thought it'd be cool to wear my steel Daytona out skiing... the temperature changes caused it to lose so much time I thought I'd broken it. It started working properly when I arrived home... and then I realised the effects of drastic temperature changes on mechanical movements... you'd need a bimetallic split balance to stand a chance, and then even that'd probably only deal with +/- 10 deg C or so, not the 40-50 degree difference easily encountered going from the top of a 4km high mountain in the winter at -20 deg C to a nice hot pub back in the village...

(full disclosure - I own a Monster. And a neo-Monster. I like 'em )

[Debaser]

LDN said:

Debaser said:

By learning how to leave them overnight I got one of them to be +0 seconds after three months(!) and the other is gaining about 2 seconds a week.

... and how is that?

From what I understand the 7s26 is quite variable when it comes to the position you leave it in overnnight. Compared to me wearing it 24 hours a day, my 011J will lose or gain up to 7 or 8 seconds each day depending on the position I leave it overnight (face up / face down / on its side etc.) I can leave it face up overnight and it just so happens that it will barely lose or gain over a week.