This New Swiss Automatic Just Blew Up My Expectations for a $500 Watch

With prices skyrocketing across the Swiss watch industry in response to President Trump’s 39 percent tariff on American importers of goods made in Switzerland, Tissot has taken a different approach.

The Swatch Group brand has long been known for its high value-to-quality ratio. Still, its latest offering takes things to a frankly absurd level with a well-sized, attractive, Swiss-made everyday watch powered by an automatic movement regulated to near COSC levels of accuracy for around $500.

Livin’ the Dream

Typically, if you want to spend well under $1,000 on an automatic or mechanical watch, you have to make some compromises when it comes to accuracy.

If you’re looking at the usual suspects from Japan that dominate the $500-and-under mechanical market — Seiko, Citizen and Orient — you pretty much know going in that the movement you’re getting will probably be off by anywhere from ±20 to ±40 seconds per day. It’s just the way it is.

Tissot

Mechanical watches from big Swiss brands don’t even really exist at such low prices, with most brands’ entry-level models starting closer to the $1,000 mark. But even if they did, you’d likely be relegated to something like a Sellita SW-200 for a movement, which has a stated base accuracy rating of ±12 to ±30 seconds per day.

Now, Tissot has come along and changed the game with its new Classic Dream Powermatic 80. As you can likely tell by the model name, the watch uses the brand’s ETA-made Powermatic 80 movement, which offers some high-end niceties like an anti-magnetic Nivachron hairspring and the titular 80 hours of power reserve.

Tissot

But most impressively, the movement has a stated accuracy of -4 to +10 seconds per day, with an average deviation of just ±7 seconds per day. That’s not too far from meeting the COSC chronometer standard of -4 to +6 seconds per day and, like I said before, is pretty unheard of for around $500. I could be wrong, but I don’t know of another mechanical watch offering this kind of precision for this kind of money.

It would be one thing if Tissot were shoving this movement into some ugly thing no one wanted, but the Classic Dream Powermatic 80 is pretty damn agreeable. It has a sunray dial with sharply faceted applied indices and dauphine hands, a date, a 40mm case in stainless steel, a sapphire crystal and a solid water-resistance rating of 50m.

Tissot

In other words, it’s a damn good everyday watch, made all the more attractive by its impressively precise mechanical engine. As Tissot said in a press release, the new Classic Dream is “opening the world of refined watchmaking to a larger audience.”

Pricing and availability

At launch, there are seven variations of the Tissot Classic Dream Powermatic 80. Three are offered on leather straps: there’s a blue dial in steel, which is priced at $515 — the cheapest in the lineup — a white dial with a rose gold PVD steel case and a champagne dial with a yellow gold PVD steel case. Those are both priced at $550.

Four more versions are available on a quick-release Jubilee-esque steel bracelet: Two in plain steel with a black or silver dial, and two two-tone versions in rose gold or yellow gold PVD steel, both with silver dials. All four bracelet models are priced the same at $550, which is surprising since gold PVD versions of other Tissot watches, like the PRX, always cost more than their plain steel counterparts.

Tissot

Tissot Classic Dream Powermatic 80

Specs

Case Size	40mm
Movement	ETA Powermatic 80 automatic
Water Resistance	50m

• Starts at $515

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