1. Mechanical/automatic watch:
Relying on the winding of the mainspring to provide power, and the timing by gear transmission. Mechanical watches are divided into manual winding and automatic winding. Due to the complex structure, the mechanical watch is relatively heavy. Because of the characteristics of the travel time principle, it is affected by gravity, mechanical friction, temperature changes, usage conditions, etc., so the error is larger than that of a quartz watch.
2. Quartz Watch:
Normal quartz watch or chronograph quartz watch uses batteries as powers and the stable high frequency vibration of quartz crystals as time reference, so the time of quartz watches is more accurate while the cost is more lower. Quartz watches are attractive both in price and quality.
Characteristics of quartz watches and mechanical/automatic watches
3. Characteristics of quartz watches
a. The time of second hand of quartz watch is accurate. Normally the month error is within 10 seconds. There are three hands(hour hand, minute hand and second hand), two hands(hour hand and minute hand), two hands with sub second hand(hour hand and minute hand with sub-dial) and six hands(hour hand, minute hand, second hand and three sub-dial for timing).
b. The movement uses integrated circuit with button cells, which is much easier than the structure of mechanical/automatic watches and easy assembled. Quartz watches are convenient to use, and no need for winding before wearing. Normally the batteries can serve three to five years, and some better quality batteries can even serve seven years. It’s depend on type of quartz movement.
c. Quartz watches are competitive than mechanical/automatic watches( in same brands and same styles). However some high-end quartz watch brands are expensive because of the brands, great outside material(18k gold or diamond or precious metal), excellent designs. Thus some chronograph quartz watches are much more expensive than normal mechanical/automatic watches.
4. Characteristics of mechanical/automatic watches
a. The movement of mechanical/automatic watches are complicated and has little travel time errors(based on different movement brands). Normally mechanical/automatic watches have movements like Sea Gull mechanical movement, Japan mechanical/automatic movement, and Swiss mechanical/automatic movement etc. Among all the movements, Swiss mechanical/automatic movement has the smallest travel errors, with daily error at -4 or +6 seconds. The time error of mechanical/automatic watches can not be accumulated so it needs debugging over a period of time.
b. Mechanical/automatic watches are made in good quality and easy to use. It can work more than 42 hours if it’s fully-wound.
c. The movement of mechanical/automatic watches has longer time service.
d. Usually, mechanical/automatic watches have thicker watch case than quartz watches(based on different brands). Some brands also have thin appearance.
