Are Oakley Watches worth the price? - Page 3

the older Time Bomb has automatic movement.
as for styling, like i said... yes it's pretty out there, but as i work as a Project Manager for an Architecture firm, i can pretty much get away with wearing their watches. Oakley products were never intended for the generic or conservative market anyway.

I think you should get ESQ instead of Oakley. They are in the same price range and it's swiss quartz.

Heh, when you think about it, you really should consider the fact that mechanical watches are not like digital watches. The omega I'm looking at probably will have something like a 5 second loss each day. That adds up, and although after you break it in you can take it from my understanding to a watch guy to get the daily loss closer to 0, it still is something to consider. Now considering these are all quartz, the loss per day is rather little I am sure, but the more I think about it, the more I come back to the conclusion in my head that when you buy a mechanical watch you should buy it for not only it's looks, but for it's movement too. You don't buy a television or car just because they have amazing looks, you buy them for what they can do for you, if the television creates an image you are happy with, if the car is efficent and suits your needs..

Mmmhmm, because every 13 y/o needs a $1500 watch .


For the price of some of those Oakleys, i.e. Oakley Icon, you can purchase a broad range of quality watches. If you're lucky you might be able to find a used Breitling for around there, and they make absolutely stunning watches. Or you can always go the more traveled route and buy yourself a nice Tag Heuer, like the Formula One, Indy 500, 2000, etc. Tag makes really nice watches and the prices are very reasonable on some of them (Under $1k). Seiko's Kinetic watches are also quite nice.

Err, is there anything wrong with a quartz movement?

Considering I bought a quartz and an auto of the same brand, the auto came DOA and I can't get it repaired for some reason (something getting lost in translation here in Finland, but the best I can learn is that "we are missing spare part."). The quartz was in working order, umm no, not much wrong with quartz from that POV.

I supose it's considered less traditional. The most complicated watches in the world are automatic and manual though. I.E. the Patek Phillips sky moon tourbillon.

There's nothing wrong with a quartz movement. However, it's a lot cheaper to manufacture because it's less complex. That's why I find it surprising when a company charges $1000+ (or even substantially above $500) for a watch with a quartz movement and not covered in precious metals.

Basically, it appears that Oakley is charging high prices for the name and marketing in conjunction with fairly unimpressive technology. That's why I compared them to Bose.

Luckily they're not the Bose of their core competence yet, and I hope it stays that way.

That is what I was wondering... since from all that I've previously heard a quartz movement is similar to even the best mechanical movements in terms of accurate timekeeping. Quartz movement has less drifting (probably wrong word), whereas mechanical has more, but it cancels itself out somewhat. And I can't see why the quartz movement would be less reliable or more prone to problems, given the greater simplicity.

That's why I have a bit of trouble grasping the Bose analogy, other than with regards to profit margin. With Bose, the sound quality is less than other equipment of the same price, so one can rightly say they are ripoffs. But with Oakley, the timekeeping is similar to that of other watches of the same price. So if watches generally have similar timekeeping ability, it would seem to me that one would be paying for things like name and style. And if Oakley watches have good style, then what's the problem? The marketing doesn't make it better, but it also doesn't make it worse.

The whole quartz vs. mechanical is a lot like the pen world...fountain pens/expensive ballpoints vs. Bics. At the end of the day, a watch is just meant to tell time...just like a pen is meant to simply write a line. Unless you're in the select crowd that's highly fascinated by how a mechanical watch works and/or are willing to deal with its maintenance and upkeep, I would imagine most people buy a watch first and foremost because of how it fits in with their image. I see nothing wrong with Oakley from that point of view.

My Bose analogy is with respect to technical complexity and production cost, not with respect to timekeeping ability. Even a $20 watch keeps time very well these days, so a person is never really paying for timekeeping ability.

What do you get in a $1000 watch? With traditional watch vendors, you get style, the name, and a complicated internal mechanism. With Oakley, you just get style and the name.

The speaker comparison is thus: from a decent speaker manufacturer, a $1000 pair of speakers will get you a nice look and quality drivers (Seas, Scanspeak, etc.). For the same price, going Bose gets you a nice look along with cheap drivers (<$20 paper cheapies).

Anyway, I don't want to get into an argument about this. I was just genuinely surprised when Plainsong said that Oakleys used quartz movements. I had always assumed that since Oakleys were so expensive they used technology that watches in that price class typically used. I was wrong. This happens in the speaker world too.

Watches, no.

Sunglasses, yes.

Apparel, maybe. (I really like my hat, may have to get another soon )

Do they even make good sunglasses? I mean, anyone who is serious about sunglasses buys Bolles over overpriced Oakley tripe...

As for watches, I do not see the appeal; at these prices, the competition is endless, and I don't see what makes Oakley watches unique.

-Matt

I just thought I'de jump in again..

I've been hanging out on timezone a bit, and a lot of these guys are fascinated by good movements and complicated watches. I think it has to do more with the fact that when some people are spending a lot of money on an watch, they want to know they are getting something special, or what you may call "state of the art", not something that you can find in cheaper watches (the quartz movement that is. Although there are some cheaper watches that are automatic, I think it's safe to say most are quartz. I do not beleive the cheaper automatics have as good an power reserve as the more expensive ones) The omega speedmaster professional is the same watch that was worn on the moon more or less, and it is manual, which I consider crazy because I doubt I'de ever wind a watch everyday, but the watch seems to be very popular among watch enthusiasts. Kind of my reminds me of vintage recievers/amps on here. Plus, from my understanding, for timepieces, quartz is an rather new technology with the first R&D beginning somewhere in the '50s (I think, wikipedia says that Seiko created world's first quartz wristwatch in 1969.)

PS, does anybody know anything about the type of bracelets the Oakley's use? I.E. do they have a large percentile nickel like the cheaper bracelets? Do they offer leather, gold and platinum variations like some of the high end watch manufactesr do?