It’s the watch that saved Audemars Piguet, that came to define it. The eight, hard angles framing the dial and bracelet blending seamlessly into the case can be recognised from across the street—and that’s the point. The Royal Oak was meant to redefine an ailing industry, create exclusivity with a technology that was fast becoming antiquated. And it worked—but could it be better?

Stop the average person on the street and ask them if Rolex is better than Omega, and there’s a high chance they’ll agree. Rolex is a bigger brand, sells more watches, has a stronger following—yet here’s something that proves that Omega is, in fact, the champion.

High end watches come with high end prices—that's no secret. But what if there were some loophole, some trick to getting watches made by top names like IWC, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin for the kind of prices you'd pay for Rolexes, Omegas and TAG Heuers? Perhaps there is.

We’ve covered many of the varied and interesting complications watchmaking has to offer, from the humble self-changing date to the mighty perpetual calendar, but despite the vast iterations of features we have seen, there are always a few more that we haven’t—and some of them are quite unusual. Here are three of them—the question is, are they useless or not?

This is it. This is the big one. In one corner, you’ve got Patek Philippe, king of the watchmaking trifecta, and in the other, you’ve got A. Lange & Söhne, the crisp, clinical perfectionist. It’s Switzerland versus Germany, classic watchmaking versus polished efficiency, and what better way to fight this fight than with some flagship watches from each brand. This is going to be good.

If the digital age has taught us anything, it’s that there’s something unquestionably appealing about analogue. Whether its hi-fi, photography, cars or watches, being in control of a machine with moving parts that we can manipulate and understand is inherently satisfying. But as technology moves forward, knowledge of the old ways wanes, some of it to be lost forever. It is our responsibility to pass that knowledge on to new generations of aficionados, our duty—so with that in mind, here are five things you must never do with your mechanical watch.

For many of us, we can only dream of owning a Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC or Rolex, and that’s a shame. But there’s another way, sort of—buy a more affordable alternative. With that said, here are three more affordable alternatives to expensive watches.

Whether you like Richard Mille or not—and it’s a hotly contested topic—you have to at least acknowledge that the avant-garde brand does things a little differently. Since the release of the 2001 RM001, Richard Mille has chosen to define the watches it makes by going down a different route to traditional Swiss watchmaking—and here are five things that particularly stand out.

If you’re making a run at the top spot, you’ve got to take on the alpha—and right now that’s Rolex’s DateJust. It’s been a long time coming, but Omega is finally ready to try and take its crown back from the young pretender, and it’s going to try with this, the Aqua Terra. It’s cheaper—but is it better?

For a very long time, it was possible to count the number of manufacturers that could make a chronograph movement on one hand, and there’s a reason for that—it’s a very hard complication to make. To find the greatest chronograph, however, is about more than just what ticks inside—it’s the journey, the history, the story. With that being said, here are three of the greatest chronographs ever made.

From his very first, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf wanted his watches to be the very best, and that could only be true if the very best professionals used them. How much more professional can you get than the armed forces?

Think of steel and gold and you may well think of white suits with rolled-up sleeves, the Ferrari Testarossa and awful, awful haircuts, but it may well be that the association is a little unfair. As easy as it is to picture a bi-metal watch worn on an incredibly loose bracelet around an over-tanned wrist, shrouded in cigar smoke, perhaps it’s time to give the plain and precious metal combo a second chance—with one small alteration.

If you want a chronograph from Rolex’s stable, you can part ways with about £10,000 and get yourself the latest and greatest ceramic 116500LN—or you could pay a quarter of a million for one of these instead: the ‘Paul Newman’ 6263. How can it be worth 25 times more?

Not everyone has the means or desire to shell out the increasing amounts of money for a Rolex Submariner, but that doesn't mean that an exceptional dive watch need be off the cards. The entry-level Oris Divers Sixty-Five is a vintage-inspired treat starting at £1,270—but twice the price will secure Tudor's Black Bay. Is it worth it?

For a long, long time, watch movements have been made primarily of metal. But there's a new kid in town, a so-called wonder material that claims to be completely anti-magnetic and require zero lubrication: silicon. But is it as good as the watch brands would have us believe?

Being a watchmaker is all about battling the laws of physics. Whatever it is you want to do, friction, mass, inertia, gravity, momentum, magnetism, position, movement—it’s all out to get you. Every now and then, however, comes a watchmaker who can seemingly bend these laws to their will to make something that should otherwise be impossible. Meet one of those watchmakers: François-Paul Journe.