Review: Timex Waterbury Ocean
You’re probably wondering how a $100 plastic quartz watch can possibly be better than a Rolex. I admit, in some lanes, the Rolex breezes by—build quality, investment potential etcetera—but it’s not a total knockout. In fact, the Timex Waterbury, despite being plastic, despite being quartz, is in many ways, a genuinely better watch. Here’s why.
It’s Cheaper
I learnt the expression, “buy cheap, buy twice” the hard way with, of all things, shoes. Despite my best efforts to ignore the peeling soles and fraying laces, it was abundantly clear to me that spending less on something does not always equate to a saving. And so you might think that spending a single percent of the Rolex’s value on a watch is a fool’s errand.
The shoes I bought were about $15 so it was no wonder they failed on me time after time. A $50 pair did much better. By that ratio, a watch needs to be above $3,000 dollars to not be a complete lemon. That’s where we need to recalibrate really, because the $10,000 you’ll pay for a Rolex Submariner is not necessarily indicative of the price you need to pay to get a good, solid watch.
The Timex Waterbury Ocean may seem like pennies compared to the Rolex, but in absolute terms it’s still a whole $100, and unless inflation has done even more of a whoopsie between my now and your now, $100 isn’t nothing. $100 still buys you an excellent pair of shoes, and it’ll still buy you a solid watch. Don’t be fooled by desensitisation—the Timex maybe cheaper, a lot cheaper, but it’s not rubbish.
It’s Recycled
Well, actually it is rubbish, but I mean that most literally. With the Waterbury Ocean, the 42mm plastic case and bracelet are moulded from recycled ocean-bound plastic. Rather than waiting for it to end up in the sea and then fishing it back out again, the company Tide gets in earlier up the chain and grabs it all before it gets there. They even transport it and produce it in ways that reduce carbon production so they aren’t just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
That’s $100 to feel good about yourself, for playing a small part in the funding of promising endeavours to not turn Earth into a giant teenager’s bedroom. I mean, even if you couldn’t give a flying fish about sea life, the reality is that preserving the Earth as it is, really is as much about maintaining a habitable environment for humans as it is for any of the other critters we share it with. If we bloop ourselves out of existence, the planet will have forgotten about us in a universally relative blink of an eye.
So if you’re of the mindset that you quite like Earth the way it is, thank you very much, then the Timex Waterbury gets an extra tick, because not only do you stop a bird trying to bottle itself, you encourage the kind of transformative behaviour that needs to grow en masse.
It’s Older
Here’s one you probably wouldn’t have guessed: Timex is older than Rolex. As a business I mean. Rolex started making watches—or rather, watches were made on behalf of the company—in 1905. Pretty old. But not as old as Timex. They’ve been at it since 1854.
They were first known as the Waterbury Clock Company, stationed in Waterbury, Connecticut. The name of this watch might be making a little more sense now. The name Timex appeared at the end of World War Two when the company became insolvent, reformed under the new brand that would become one of America’s greatest. Certainly most popular. Timex is believed to have produced over 100 million watches.
The company’s motto has always been to make clocks and watches almost anyone can afford, and you’ve got to admire that. It’s one thing to make something as good as it can be and sell it for an eye-watering price, but to find the efficiency in every aspect and maintain reliability—in some ways that’s even harder. It means more volume, tighter margins and a potentially more volatile business, as was demonstrated at the end of World War Two.
So you get the benefit of not only enjoying a cheaper, more sustainable watch, but one that boasts over a century and a half of production. That’s not only older that Rolex, it’s older than Breitling, Audemars Piguet, TAG Heuer—the list goes on and on.
It’s More Accurate
Okay, so this next one is a bit of a gotcha, but from an empirical standpoint, it’s true. The Timex Waterbury Ocean is a more accurate watch than a Rolex Submariner. All that craftsmanship, all that technology, all those fancy names and that micro engineering and the mechanical movement inside the Rolex still gets beaten by a Japanese quartz that probably cost ten bucks.
I know, I know, that’s not why we enjoy mechanical movements, but it’s still a gut punch to realise that the peak of Rolex accuracy, losing just two seconds a day, is promptly walked all over by a pretty basic quartz calibre. Aside from the replacement of a battery, a cheap and easy thing to do yourself if you’re into that sort of thing, the Miyota quartz in the Timex is just better at doing the one thing it’s meant to do: telling the time and telling it accurately.
Instead of two seconds a day, you’ll lose twenty—a month. The best quartz movements lose that and less in a year, and still they’re cheaper than the Rolex. Let’s go back to those shoes for a moment. The Timex with its quartz movement is a pair of high-tech Gore-Tex boots that aren’t necessarily cheap, but they’re not so expensive you don’t mind getting them wet.
The Rolex, on the other hand, is a handcrafted pair of Italian brogues made from the finest dodo leather, and regardless of how good they are out in the rain, you’d never dare try because they cost so much. Speaking of which …
It’s Safer
The last point I want to make is all around the concept of safety, peace-of-mind. A Rolex Submariner boasts 300m of water resistance, but despite the Timex only having a tenth of that, I can imagine most people would be far more comfortable going for a splash about with the Waterbury. It’s not just about getting wet, it’s about knocking it, scratching it or even losing it.
If you’ve ever driven a nice, expensive car, you’ll know the feeling of speed, power and luxury. You’ll also know the feeling of stress you get whenever you leave it in a car park or squeeze past another car down a country lane. The heated Nappa leather may be comfortable, but it’ll never be comfortable enough to stop your butt puckering when you parallel park against an aggressive kerb.
By contrast, an old, banged-up Peugeot that cost you ten bob and an old slipper delivers the most luxurious experience imaginable: stress-free freedom. You can go anywhere with it, do anything with it, and no matter what, it’ll never be worth less than ten bob and an old slipper.
That’s the Timex. You can wear it like Elon Musk can the Rolex: with complete and utter contempt. And it’s brilliant. It’s there taking the knocks quietly like a good little watch and you don’t even have to think about it.
What do you think? Can the Timex Waterbury be your better-than-Rolex watch? I think in certain circumstances—which occur every single day—it really can. It’s nice to have the Rolex, like it’s nice to have a fancy car or a posh pair of shoes, but part of enjoying nice things is actually getting to enjoy them. Keep them as a treat, use them as an occasion, and let the Timex take care of everything else.
