The Certina DS Super PH 2000M sits on a table like something a stylish thief would wear before sliding into the Mediterranean to grab an octopus. That image, absurd and weirdly specific, is exactly the kind of thinking behind Speeed’s deep-dive into 18 affordable watches: not which ones are technically correct, but which ones make you feel like a person worth knowing. The premise is simple but the research was genuine. Creator James Pumphrey spent weeks reading about watches, staring at pictures of watches, and texting two people who actually know what they are talking about: Cole Pennington, who lives in Geneva, and James Stacy from Odinki. The result is a ranked countdown that runs from $1,400 all the way down to $15, covering automatic movements, radioactive lume, Italian Navy frogmen, and one watch purchased on Amazon while a rehab staff member watched over his shoulder.
Where the list begins and why the first few picks cost the most
The Certina DS Super PH 2000M opens the countdown at the top of the price range. It runs on a Powermatic 80 automatic movement, which delivers 80 hours of power reserve, roughly twice what many comparable movements offer. It reads like it belongs in the 1960s, which is the whole point.
Marathon’s MSR, or Medium Search and Rescue, follows. Marathon is based in Canada and manufactured in Switzerland, and they primarily make timepieces for the US armed forces and NATO. What separates the MSR from the field is its lume. Most watches use photoluminescent paint that charges under ambient light. Marathon uses tubes of tritium gas that glow through radioactive decay, generating light without any exposure to external light at all. The castillated bezel knurling is chunky in exactly the right way, and the date sits in what the watch world calls a 4:30 window, tucked between the four and the five.
The Baltic MR comes next, a French brand that uses off-the-shelf movements and puts its energy into proportions and design. The result feels very midcentury without trying too hard. Then comes the Hamilton Khaki Field, which Pumphrey named as the first watch he thought of when starting the list. It is a genuine icon for under $1,000 with no waiting list. The core recommendation is the classic black dial, hand-wound, 36-millimeter version. ‘That’s the old boy,’ he put it. ‘That’s the core one.’
The Tissot PRX lands next. In 1978, during the height of the integrated sports watch era, Tissot introduced the PRX. Luxury sports watches surged back into fashion and Tissot relaunched it in 2021. Pumphrey is clear that a more affordable version of a great design is not a knockoff. It is good design made more attainable.
Japanese engineering, Italian frogmen, and a watch bought at MoMA
The Citizen Promaster Dive Automatic Fugu arrives as the first Japanese entry. It is ISO certified for diving, costs under $600, features a full lume dial, a left-side crown so it does not dig into your hand underwater, and a puffer fish engraved on the caseback because the bezel apparently resembles one. Italian Navy incursore frogman units have used these watches since 1989.
The Seiko SRP E93 Turtle follows. One of the most respected tool watches ever made, the SRP E93 is deliberately unglamorous: matte black dial, printed indices, lume that may be among the brightest on the planet. Seiko makes everything in-house, including their own screws, synthetic rubies, lubricants, hairspring alloys, and quartz crystals, making them one of the few vertically integrated watch manufacturers in the world.
The CWC quartz model comes next, the first quartz watch issued to the British military, in 1980. Its battery hatch unscrews with a coin, specifically a pence, so you can swap batteries in the field without opening the entire watch. Lug bars are welded on, meaning only pass-through straps work. Strange-looking until you understand why every choice was made that way.
The Brew Metric PVD follows, a watch that is not trying to be a cheaper version of something more expensive. The design references 1980s Porsches in its dial layout, red hands, and black PVD coating. PVD stands for physical vapor deposition: an extremely thin coating that allows a bracelet to flex and move without resistance. Pumphrey may buy one.
The Seiko Cocktail Time is a dress watch born from a collaboration with a world champion bartender. Dial colors are named after cocktails including the Negroni and the Mojito. The Seiko 5 SSK GMT arrived in 2022 as a mechanical GMT watch for $500, a price point that previously did not exist. The Orient Bambino closes out the mechanical watches: the cheapest in-house movement on the list, imperfect build quality acknowledged, but romantically analogue in the way a manual transmission is.
On the digital side, the Japanese-market Timex Iron Man eight-lap OG is a recreation of the original 1986 model with a translucent-case limited edition done with Hodinkee. The Sheffield QL1 costs $63 and features a tilted offset dial designed for drivers so the dial points straight up when your wrist is on a steering wheel. The Casio A500 world timer has a tiny digital map of the world and a romantic orange backlight. The Casio AQ230, which Pumphrey bought in rehab because phones were not allowed, is sold at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. And last, the Casio F91W: sometimes under $20, designed by Yasuki Mori in 1989, over 100 million sold, and still produced essentially unchanged.
The Casio F91W, sitting there being exactly what it is
The Casio F91W. Black resin case. Tiny digital face. Less than thirty dollars. The same watch it has always been.
When something is very cheap and people still know the name of the person who designed it, Pumphrey noted, that is usually a sign that something is right about the thing. The F91W has been on wrists for over three decades without needing to change a single thing to stay relevant.
