The new Tissot PRX is likely the hottest affordable quartz watch on social media. Its popularity can be easily attributed to Tissot’s marketing strategy and what is essentially a highly photogenic product. The integrated bracelet design gives the watch a 70’s/80’s vibe which is currently the most popular trend today. It looked so good in pictures and appeared so much on my feeds that I eventually made a purchase on Amazon for this piece. Non-sponsored. And here’s some of my thoughts.
Review: Tissot PRX
Retail price is SGD 510 (inclusive of GST) / USD 375
The Case
The watch measures 40 mm in diameter and 10.4 mm in thickness. Its a comfortable size and wears well on most 6 inch and up wrists. Understandably, the first end link is non-articulating and while it curves at a downward 30 degrees angle, it still protrudes, bringing the effective lug to lug width to approximately 52 mm.
The case finishing is very good for a watch in this price bracket. Retailing at US$375 before tax. It has a good brush and polish mix, with polishing also on the joining portion inside of the links. A bevelled edge along the center case is also mirror polished, and its bezel as well. Not zaratsu level of course, but with minimal distortion. In comparison with Seikos twice its price, the Tissot PRX is a clear winner.
The watch comes in 3 dial colors, blue, black and silver/white. The dark colored dials have steel colored hands and indices while the white dial variant comes in rose gold. The black and white dial uses a brushed texture finish, similar to a dressage on movement plates. The most popular blue dial has a sunburst finish.
Hands and dial
The watch comes with a date aperture at the 3 o’clock position, and printed Tissot and PRX logo. A minutes track runs along the periphery of the dial, and the hours are marked by applied stick indices. The indices are relatively flat, with a height of less than 1 mm. As with the hands, the indices are also lume filled and can glow in the dark, although for only a short time.
Lack of Anti reflective coating on crystal
The crystal used here is sapphire, but without anti reflective treatment. For those familiar with AR on watches, it can get pretty uncomfortable getting used to a flat crystal watch without AR. Especially if you’re trying to take photos of your watch in the outdoors or anywhere with some light. A blur tint comes over the dial, even more so for the dark dial variants.
Misaligned seconds jumps
The first thing that struck out after I unboxed my watch, peeled the stickers and adjusted the time, was the misaligned seconds hand.
Being so used to smooth sweeping hands, or Citizen’s high accuracy quartz, a misaligned seconds tick really stands out. It seems like the seconds hand has hits and misses, coming in aligned for about half to 3/4 of the dial then going off tangent for the remainder of the dial then back again in the misaligned cycle. For those who hate such deformities, it is best to avoid the quartz variant and pick up the powermatic release instead. Alternatively, pick out a high precision quartz from another brand but at a higher price point.
The Movement
The Tissot PRX uses the ETA F06.115 quartz movement. The movement is an entry level quartz with -0.3/+0.5s a day accuracy. It also comes equipped with a EOL End of life indicator, which signals battery depletion with a larger 4 second interval leap of the seconds hand.
It would have been more interesting to have a solar quartz, a long lasting battery, high accuracy quartz, or just something fancy to make up for an otherwise plain movement.
Concluding thoughts
The Tissot PRX is in a sweet spot of affordability and good looks. While the points mentioned, the lack of AR, misaligned seconds, uninteresting movement may deter some, the PRX is still a very convincing product.
If anything, it has possibly the nicest looking case at this price point from a mainstream brand today. It’s rated at 100 m water resistance, but without a screwdown crown, it’s best to use caution with submersible activities. Quartz is also refreshing for those sick and tired of inaccurate 6r35 movements or handwinding their 2801 based Hamiltons.
Photo Notes
Though it is noted in the review that the lack of anti-reflective treatment on the glass wrought problems in photography, we managed to photograph the watch through careful setup of the watch, camera and lighting. Photographed with the Leica SL2-S with APO-Elmarit Macro TL 60mm/f2.8 ASPH with Profoto strobes.
