Seiko 5 SNK809 - The Cheapest Automatic Watch?

I've been trying to find an automatic watch, well just for fun. I've a few normal watches or quartz-powered watches but I felt an urge to get into mechanical watches lately.

But first, I'd like to give some introduction about mechanical watches. Based on my research, there are 2 types of mechanical watches: automatic and manual.

In summary, the manual watch is a watch that you need to wound for it to move (kinda like old watches or the simple car toy).

Automatic watch, on the other hand, accumulates potential energy from our wrist movement into its spring by use of a weighted rotor on its back. (You can read more about the differences of these 2 in this excellent write up here).

So which one that I want? Of course the lesser maintenance type of automatic.

But now it comes to the question of what automatic watch is the safest bet for those starting out.

From a search on few websites, I found that the Seiko 5 SNK809 is one of the cheapest AND highly regarded automatic watch currently. (Check out this page for more good automatic watch under $200).

While most automatic watches cost more than $100, this little timepiece costs only $50 to $70 - depending on where and when you get it.

What I noticed was the offer price for the SNK809 differs from one website to the other. Some, like Jomashop.com carries it with an almost similar pricing all year round. But Amazon.com, on the other hand, likes to give hefty discounts during holiday seasons.

Apart from the pricing, what I like about the watch is how it's a tiny little timepiece. It's only 37 mm in diameter and will wear a lot smaller than most watches nowadays.

I've tried it once and I can say it's very light and comfortable to wear, especially with the lightweight Nato strap that it comes with.

As someone with a small arm, the watch really work wonders to me because it's not heavy to wear at all.

In addition to that, the design of the Seiko 5 SNK809 watch uses military/aviation design. As you can see, the markings on the watch is a bit weird.

The minute markings (0-60) are bigger than the hourly markings (1-12). This is a hallmark design of older generation aviation watch as far as I can tell.

What I do understand is this arrangement is easier to tell time with. As you can notice, the shorter hour hand stops directly on the inner circle of hourly markers.

Likewise, the longer minute hand stops on the outer circle of minute markers.

This makes the watch easier to tell time with, especially for those combatants that need to tell time at a glance. A normal watch just don't give you that.

I also like how it has a day and date display at its right hand side. These 2 are very functional items to be had on an analog watch like this.

In addition, the crown placement is just a good place to be. It's not at the normal 3 o'clock position but Seiko put it a on a bit diagonal position at 4 o'clock.

From what I can experience while wearing it, this makes the crown unnoticeable when being worn. It definitely make wearing the SNK809 a pleasure experience =)