A bracelet also doesn’t fit the aesthetic here, but that’s another point.

The Dial

The SNK809 lands somewhere between a classic IWC pilot’s watch and a Hamilton Khaki Field Watch, and borrows some of the best elements of both.

The sharp hands are fully lumed, and the second hand is lumed on its counterweight with a flash of red on the pointer end.

Each hour marker is accented by a seconds counter that steps up by five for each hour, all the way to 60 seconds. That’s a classic pilot’s watch feature, and though it makes the SNK809’s dial much busier, it fits within the overall aesthetic.

The indices have lumed dots on their outer edge, and their placement on the outside of the dial means there’s room for the date window and a lume dot for better nighttime visibility.

A bonus for a watch in any price range is a day/date complication, and the SNK809 has it.

Depending on where the watch is purchased, at least two different languages are available for the day indication.

Automatic Movement

You can scour eBay and find hundreds of cheap watches with automatic movements, but they’re mostly cheap knockoffs that were made in mass quantities in a factory somewhere overseas.

The SNK809 has a mass-produced movement, but it’s Seiko’s in-house 7S26 automatic movement with 21 jewels and a 40-hour power reserve.

We mentioned earlier that the SNK809 doesn’t have a manual wind function, but that’s far from a complaint at this price point. Wearing the watch or gently shaking it briefly will get things ticking, and wearing it regularly will keep it running with the power reserve.

Seiko rates the movement at -20/+40 seconds a day, a number far from chronometer territory, but there’s not much to complain about for the price.

The SNK809 also features an exhibition caseback, also made of Hardlex, which lets the watch show off its stuff. It’s not a highly decorated, flashy mechanical movement, but it’s a nice touch that ups the Seiko’s visual appeal.