[Discussion] Seiko has completely downgraded their mid range (~$500) automatics, they went from great value choices, to barely competitive.
Ok, so let me start by saying that brand value and design are purely subjective measurements. If you believe that the Seiko name is worth a lot of money, or that you love their designs a ton, then by all means, a midranged Seiko is a brilliant deal. In my opinion, Seiko is not a watch brand that I'm willing to pay extra for.
So lets rewind 20 years or so. In the 90s, Seiko was selling ~$300-500 watches with the 4s15 movement. Most of these were JDM, so I won't really consider inflation (since well, the yen deflated in the last 20 years), but they were Seiko's midrange, mainstream, high volume automatics. The 4S15 movement is a 28,800 BPH, 40 hour power reserve, hacking, hand winding automatic movement. The 4S15 is approximately an ETA 2824 tier movement. The most classic example would probably be the Seiko
"red alpinist"
Eventually Seiko phased out the 4s series in their mainline watches (and seriously pushed them up market to Credor), and came out with the 6R15 for use in their mainstream watches. The 6R15 is 21,600 bph, 50 hour power reserve, and hacking and hand winding. I personally consider the 6R15 to be a movement that is slightly worse than the ETA 2824 (higher beat rate) and Powermatic 80 (higher power reserve). However, most of the best known 6R15 equipped watches have sapphire crystals so combined with the interesting designs (OG Cocktail time, green dialed Alpinist, Sarb033/35), I absolutely don't mind the price to performance ratio around the ~500 gray market price that these were going for.
But in the last year or two, Seiko has been discontinuing the models that you can find for around ~$400, $500 gray market like the SARB065 Cocktail Time, the SARB017 Alpinist, and the Sarb033/035. Now in the segment between the Seiko 5 (<$300) to ~$1000, Seiko fills their lineup with the new Presage lineup, Seiko Premiers and a few new Prospex models.
So now, if you want a Seiko dress watch in that price range, you can get the ~$500 presage lineup (gray market street price is around $300-400). These watches have Hardlex crystals and 4R series movements. Problem is, look at the competition around that price range (I'll just get gray market prices off Jomashop, there's probably cheaper out there):
For around $300-400 gray market, you can take your pick of
Tissot Visodates,
Tissot La Locles, even
COSC certified Tissot Luxury automatics. Tissot isn't to your liking? How about the
Frederique Constant Slimline, the
Hamilton Viewmatic, or the
Raymond Weil Maestro?
Every single one of them have a better movement than the Seiko 4r series movements and sapphire crystal. Hell, the majority of them have deployment clasps. So yes, unless you truly love the Seiko designs or the Seiko brand, there's a lot more around the ~$300-$400 gray market price range that will knock the socks off the new Seiko Presage line up.
You want a dive watch? Well Seiko divers around the $300-500 on the gray market are usually a 4r3* divers with hardlex, steel construction, and 200m water resistance, like this
SRPA21.
The competition? How about
this Tissot Seastar with a Powermatic 80, 300m water resistance, ceramic dial, and a helium escape valve? All for only $375. Or how about
this Hamilton? Or how about a
Steinhart with ceramic bezel and full warranty from an AD? Hell, spec wise the Seiko Prospex is competitive with the
Orient Ray II, a watch that you can get on the gray market for under $150 bucks.
Again, when it comes to dive watches, Seiko for ~$500 on the gray market has nothing that is really competitive. Why buy a Seiko with you can go with the Swiss for a lot better around the same price? or you can get an Orient from the same group for less than half the price. Hell, mineral crystal, 4R36, and 200m water resistance? You can get all that on an $80 Invicta pro diver.
I can keep going. You want to talk about field watches? Take your pick with the $300-400 Hamiltons, all of them come with either ETA2824 or H10, with sapphire crystal at the least. Tissot can make you an automatic chrono for around ~$400, Seiko doesn't have anything in that range.
You know what, at one point, Seiko truly did delivery class leading value at a price point the swiss and Orient/Citizen cannot hit. But the sad thing is, Seiko has been slowly downgrading their midrange lineup, from the 4S movements that were ETA2824 competitive, to the 6R15, to now the 4R3*, and now Seiko even dropped the sapphire crystal and the deployment clasps from that price range.
4R36 movement and Hardlex is OK at the Seiko 5 price range (<$300), but Seiko is trying to push that combination upmarket to the ~$500 range, while pushing the 6R15 movement even more upmarket. I think that's absurd, and now their products are some of the LEAST price competitive products out there.
You know what we call watches with crappy internals that sell on the basis of their appearance? Fashion watches. Welp, now with the latest round of downgrades and discontinuations, Seiko, when it comes to the midranged automatic watch, is essentially a fashion watch maker now. After all, the only reason why you might want to pick a Seiko is a pretty face.