Automatic vs Battery Powered Watch

First and foremost is the price factor. The difference between a fine automatic timepiece with a battery powered watch can be huge, often as much as a few thousand dollars. You might be wondering why it has such a huge difference, is it merely because of the brand? In a nutshell, each top quality Swiss automatic watch is carefully manufactured with high quality materials. It is also handmade by skillful person instead of mass produced with machine.

The price factor will become obvious as you learn more about the differences. Next, Swiss watches use mechanical engineering to produce movement, which requires more attention. Each unit has to pass a set of quality tests before it can be shipped and sold in retail outlets or via the Internet. This is often not the case with battery powered watch. The latter is produced in China in large quantity. Staff usually samples the watches, like one in every 100, to ensure quality is good. Each Swiss watch has unique serial numbers. These numbers allow tracing of the watch to the point of sale.

Automatic watch runs by itself, but if you don't wear it for 40 hours, you need to manually reset it. Even with this feature, it is best that you take it for a service every 3 to 5 years. Quartz watch, on the other hand, requires new battery every 2 to 5 years depends on the capacity and usage.

In many ways, automatic timepieces are superior, but they are not always the case. Take precision, for example. While automatic watches have margin of error as large as 1 second per day, battery powered watches can run with less than 1 second variance per year. This is due to the nature of the mechanical versus mechanical device.

Finally, applications for battery watches are unlimited. A tiny but powerful chip can fit well into a watch, making it a powerful computer with multifunctions, including calcultor and data storage device. There is no way to add more functions to automatic watch easily. At the end of the day, it depends on your preference. Do you demand the prestige and quality of a Swiss watch? Or do you prefer something more functional for casual use? Nowadays, you can find different models that suit your need, including everything in between those extremes