Looking to get a nice watch, but not wanting to go overboard splashing your cash? At $2,000, you’re spoilt for options – and we’ve rounded up a few of the best.

When it comes to watches, we here at DMARGE are keen advocates of luxury watches, encouraging many of you to go off and invest in something from the likes of Rolex, IWC Schaffhausen, Panerai and brands of a similar ilk. Not only will you benefit from wearing some of the most exclusive and revered names in the world on your wrist, but you’ll also be getting a timepiece that will be made from exotic materials and/or have a technologically astounding movement running the show.

However, we’re also well aware that the cost (and conspicuousness) of some brands can be a deterrent for some. But fret not, as you can still nab yourself a more than respectable timepiece for under $2,000 – a pricepoint more of us mere mortals can actually stomach.

Design, movement and brand heritage all have a significant part to play in this arena and we’re here to show you some of the best men’s watches under $2,000 available in Australia right now.

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Tissot PRX

Where better to start our list than the most hyped affordable luxury sports watch in recent memory – the super-popular Tissot PRX. With its angular 70s design, integrated bracelet and hobnail dial, the PRX evokes much more expensive watches like the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak at a fraction of the price… But there’s plenty to like about the PRX even without the Royal Oak connection.

For starters, this piece’s Powermatic 80 automatic movement not only looks high-end, but also features an impressive 80-hour power reserve – outperforming the vast majority of high-end watch movements. Its bracelet, too, is not only supremely comfortable but features a proper push-button deployment clasp as well as a quick-change system, which makes it a cinch to swap in a rubber strap.

There’s a reason watch nuts are going mad for the PRX: it’s just such a great value proposition. It also comes in quartz variants for those who want to save even more coin as well as smaller sizes, but we reckon you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t get the automatic.

SevenFriday P1B/01

SevenFriday is a Swiss watch brand that has never even heard of the word ‘conformity’. Each one of the brand’s watches rocks a unique dial that will require the use of the manual to understand how it tells the time.

The P1B/01 takes inspiration from cogwheels and heavy industry, boasting a six-layer multi-level stainless steel dial finished with matt, brushed and circular cut silver, rhodium and black discs. The hands appear to float above the dial’s surface – it’s very futuristic.

Another cool thing about SevenFriday watches: they have an NFC chip embedded in the caseback, which allows secured authentication and registration via the SevenFriday app.

Alpina Startimer Pilot

Founded in 1882, Alpina is another Swiss watch brand with a long history that has been in production than many of your luxury favourites. It’s perhaps best known for its Alpiner 4 timepiece, which, when launched in 1933, was arguably the first Swiss sports watch, offering consumers a watch with antimagnetic, antishock and water-resistant properties in a stainless steel body.

Alpina also has a long history of making pilot’s watches, which is continued today with the Startimer collection. This example has a very tasteful petroleum blue dial with a retro-styled bezel and syringe hands and comes mounted on a brown calf leather strap.

Powered by a mechanical, self-winding AL-525 movement with a 38-hour power reserve, it’s a strong pilot’s watch offering from this price category by a storied brand.

Frédérique Constant Classics

Frédérique Constant was founded in 1988 by a Dutch couple who named it after the names of their great-grandparents. Since its founding (and subsequent takeover by Citizen), the Swiss watch brand has carved out a niche making classically-styled, robust and finely-crafted timepieces largely with in-house movements and at a fantastic price point.

This model from their Classics collection is a great case in point. Featuring a delicate guilloché-decorated dial accompanied by traditional Roman numerals and Breguet-style hands, this watch does indeed look like a much more expensive Breguet – yet it’s about 30 times cheaper.

Junghans Max Bill Automatic

Junghans was founded in 1861 but didn’t start producing wristwatches until 1927. Before this, the company claimed to be the world’s largest manufacturer of clocks, sending some three million watches and clocks out of its facility each year.

Applying the principles of Bauhaus design to the watches, the Max Bill Automatic pays tribute to the clocks and wristwatches created by designer Max Bill for the brand.

An extraordinary painter, sculptor and product designer, Max Bill left his mark on a watch collection, one that displays an amazing amount of simplicity and elegance. The Max Bill Automatic is made in Germany and is a mechanical, self-winding watch that displays the basics of hours, minutes and seconds. Clean, functional, and stylish – it’s a great pick for under $2,000.

Longines HydroConquest

If you’re looking to invest in a brand that has some global presence, one of the most notable in this price bracket has to be Longines. The Swiss watchmaker has been around since 1832 and is credited with making such moves within the industry as switching to solely crown-wound pocket watches, ditching the conventional-for-the-time key-wound models. To this day, Longines is still used as the official timekeeper for major sporting events including the Commonwealth Games and the Melbourne Cup.

The HydroConquest is Longines’ modern dive watch offering – although we’ve been slightly cheeky with the $2,050 price point – and you can get a lot of dive watch for the money. This model, powered by a quartz movement, is water-resistant to 300m, features a nifty bullet casing-shaped screw-down crown, a unidirectional diving bezel and a sapphire crystal – everything you’d want out of a tough dive watch.

This HydroConquest, a two-tone stainless steel and yellow gold PVD example, resembles a two-tone Rolex Submariner – except you won’t need to stress as much about swimming with this one.

Casio G-Shock Frogman 30th Anniversary

The Casio G-Shock line is the stuff of legends, and the Frogman is one of the toughest variants of the G-Shock line: this is an uncompromising action man’s watch that’s designed to survive the most intense abuse. This model in particular, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Frogman name, reprises the popular DW-8200B-9A black and gold colour scheme while adding high-tech functions to bring state-of-the-art 21st century technology to a 1990s design.

Made in Japan and made from titanium and resin, this solar-powered G-Shock features a ‘Super Illuminator’ LED backlight; dive time and surface interval measurement function; world time and daylight savings functions; moon data including moon age of the specific date, a moon phase graph and a tide graph; a stopwatch and countdown timer; 5 daily alarms and a full auto-calendar to the year 2099.

In short, this is a literally bulletproof, function-filled and premium take on the G-Shock that will outperform anything else on the market. And it’s less than $2,000!

Christopher Ward The Twelve

Founded in 2005, Christopher Ward is an English-Swiss watch brand that used to be considered a ‘microbrand‘ – but has since become so successful, that label doesn’t really make sense any more. A purveyor of eclectic, innovative, finely-crafted yet affordable timepieces, Christopher Ward is a darling of watch aficionados across the globe.

Their latest creation, The Twelve, is their first integrated bracelet watch in well over a decade. Christopher Ward makes no secret of being inspired by the Royal Oak and the Patek Philippe Nautilus (another Genta creation), but as they put it, “The Twelve brings the pleasures of such pieces with none of the downsides.”

The Twelve’s dial is easily its best feature, featuring a texture constructed of plus-shaped ‘moguls’ which both reference the Christopher Ward logo and the Swiss flag but also evoke the Royal Oak’s hobnail dial without being totally derivative. Powered by the tried-and-tested Sellita SW200-1 movement, this is an eclectic choice that those in the know will appreciate.

Hamilton Khaki Field Murph

Hamilton is another affordable Swiss luxury watch brand that offers plenty of quality options below the $2,000 mark. Indeed, their most popular model in recent history also comes in at that price point: the Hamilton Khaki Field Murph, a.k.a. the watch from Interstellar.

A retro take on their popular Khaki Field watch and faithful recreation of the timepiece that appeared in the movie on the wrist of main character Murph (hence the name), this field watch is a stylish option even if you don’t care about the movie connection – but if you do, you’ll like how the word ‘Eureka’ is printed in Morse code in lacquer on the seconds hand.

It’s no horological slouch, either, boasting an 80-hour power reserve, sapphire crystal, 100m of water resistance and a chunky calf leather strap with an alligator print.

CIGA Design Blue Planet

Now for a real statement piece. The first Chinese-made watch to win an award at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) – the Oscars of the watch industry – the CIGA Design Blue Planet is a stylish, well-made and thought-provoking timepiece that has a novel approach to telling time.

It utilises a proprietary asynchronous time display which takes a bit of time wrapping your head around: the earth is actually the hour hand, and rotates in 30-degree intervals, while the minutes ring completes full 360-degree rotations around the outside. The compass on the topographically-engraved globe itself functions as the hand for both hours and minutes.

This is the sort of watchmaking you’d expect might cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars… But it’s actually less than $2,000. This is a historic piece of watchmaking that’s sure to get you plenty of compliments.

NOMOS Glashütte Club Campus

Finally, we have the Club Campus from NOMOS Glashütte, Germany’s premier independent watchmaker. Minimal, classy and boasting genuine in-house movements, NOMOS Glashütte is a rare brand and one that offers unbelievable luxury for the price.

The Club Campus is their most affordable model and keeps things nice and simple with a classic time-only display with a traditional small seconds indicator at 6 o’clock. It’s available in a wide variety of playful colours including bright orange, deep pink, purple, salmon and electric green, but we like this versatile white option.