Mechanical vs Quartz Watches

Mechanical v quartz? It should hardly be up for debate, really. None of us would claim that a horse-drawn carriage is faster or more reliable than a car. That a messenger pigeon is more efficient than an email. That a stone axe is better than a chainsaw.

Quartz timepieces first appeared on the scene around 50 years ago and now account for the vast majority of the industry’s output. Mechanical watches, in contrast, use technology that, aside from a few minor amendments, is centuries old and comprise a small percentage of watches sold globally every year.

Japanese brand Seiko pioneered quartz watches and revolutionised the industry

That’s why mechanical watches qualify as luxury items these days. They’re infinitely less common than the disposable varieties produced en masse by assembly-line robots. They’re status symbols, style accessories, objects of beauty and fascination. We hardly need them to tell the actual time anymore. They have an allure that battery-powered watches can never have.

So where does that leave quartz? We’re certainly not dissing it. It has its plus points, and many respectable brands still use it, despite the mechanical resurgence of the last twenty years. And not everyone sticks to one or the other anyway. Maybe you swing both ways, depending on your mood, or the occasion. There are plenty of people—the horologically fluid!—who have both quartz and mechanical luxury watches in their collection.

Whether you’re about to buy a watch for the first time, never paid much consideration as to what makes your timepiece tick, or you’re simply re-evaluating your position on watch movements, open to the idea of switching sides, read on to get better understanding of what both camps have to offer.

Accuracy? No contest

It’s not exactly an industry secret that quartz watches are far more accurate. Over the course of a year, the very best quartz watches may gain or lose between five and ten seconds. Compare this to mechanical watches where even the most accurate chronometers—eg, every current Rolex watch—show deviations of plus six seconds or minus four seconds each day.

As for a watch that hasn’t passed the rigorous tests of the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute—or Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC)—you can expect deviations of around ten seconds per day. Not important if you’re just relying on your watch to rendezvous with friends at Starbucks. But if you’re a sprint coach timing elite athletes for the next Olympics, it matters. Get yourself a quartz.

Taking A Beating

Anyone lucky enough to have been on a tour of the Casio factory in Japan where they make quartz-powered G-Shock watches will have seen the barrage of tests they go through. They are literally pounded by brass mallets, plunged into all manner of water tanks and strapped to machines that replicate the rapid vibrations of a pneumatic drill.

No matter what type of case a mechanical movement is housed in—whether it’s steel, titanium or carbon fibre wrapped in a Kevlar bullet-proof vest—it can’t take that sort of punishment and maintain accuracy.

Sweep Harmony

While there are rare exceptions, one way to tell if a watch is quartz or mechanical without opening up the caseback is to look at the movement of the seconds hand. If it seems to ‘sweep’ in a smooth and constant motion, it’s mechanical. If it makes one movement for every second, it’s almost certainly powered by quartz.

Who doesn't love the constant sweeping motion of a mechanical seconds hand!

That sweeping movement—it is actually ticking, but at 4-10 ticks per second—is a visual delight for mechanical watch aficionados, and the sound it makes is infinitely more pleasant, too.

Hold a mechanical watch to your ear and listen closely. Now do the same with a quartz watch. One skips along merrily, the other plods along like a drunk driver who’s just been pulled over and asked to walk in a straight line by a traffic cop.

When it comes to the most pleasing sound, mechanical triumphs every time.

High Maintenance

Granted, a mechanical watch will probably need a service every seven to ten years, and that will cost you a lot more than the price of a lithium battery from your local market. But the watch itself will probably outlive you. It might even outlive your children. And their children, too.

How many quartz watches from the 1970s will still be ticking along in fifty years? That remains to be seen but even the words ‘vintage quartz’ doesn’t seem quite right. A little… oxymoronic maybe.

A quartz watch doesn't offer the engagement of its mechanical cousin, like this Breitling

There’s a reason mechanical watches are sometimes referred to as ‘a machine with a heartbeat’.

Sure, a quartz watch could be referred to as such, but it doesn’t depend on the love and attention of its owner. It’ll keep ticking away even when you stick it in a drawer for a year. A mechanical watch on the other hand requires some level of engagement, a little TLC. We’re not saying you should treat it like a pet or—heaven forbid!—a Tamagochi.

But you can’t just forget all about it for your summer holiday and expect it to have kept perfect time when you get back.

Winding, setting the time and date, even watching the gentle swing of a gold rotor through an exhibition caseback—such things are a pleasure with a mechanical watch, never a chore.

The self-winding movement of a Patek Philippe, with stunning gold rotor

Let’s Get Emotional

In most instances, luxury mechanical watches have been blessed with the human touch, for example components of a movement that have been engraved, buffed or polished by hand.

Seeing these parts in action—the meshing of cogs, an oscillating balance wheel—is a mesmerising choreography, and leaves quartz watches feeling a little soulless in comparison.

Again, there are exceptions. Independent watchmaker F.P. Journe has made quartz watches like the Elegante model and put a huge amount of effort into giving the movement the kind of finesse normally associated with high-end mechanical watches.

Watchmaker F.P. Journe proved that quartz movements can be beautiful

But in most cases, quartz models have closed casebacks which might as well be engraved with the words, “Move along, folks. There’s nothing to see here.”

Still, one thing’s for sure: if a watch legend like F.P. Journe is happy to make quartz and mechanical, it bodes well for the future of both types of watch movements. And with many younger watch lovers seen with an Apple watch on one wrist and a vintage Rolex on the other, who’s to say you can’t wear the two at the same time?

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