I do not understand what you are talking about. All the AliExpress watches have either NH35/36, or Miyota 8215, 8315, or my favorite, Miyota 9015/9000’s . There are clones of Swiss movements (PT5000, HangZhou 6460,…), but I have had good experience with them.

I love Seiko, but I only feel like the nicer watches make sense now (SPB, SBDC, SARX,SARA,…). The sub-$500 hardlex automatics cannot compare to modern Axios, Zelos, Phoibos, San Martin or Baltany.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I am incapable of paying over MSRP myself. I am always one to go for Seiya/Sakura discounts, but I have never spent over $3k on a Seiko / GS. I agree with you that they polish titanium like no other. I have an old 7x Astron and the polish on that is amazing. I cannot imagine how good you $9k GS must be. Enjoy the watch, and the next time you let it wind down, record the dial on video as you wind it up. Supposedly the hand spins fast until slowing down. I have always wanted to see that (I have never owned a Spring Drive).

I love SolarQuartz. I agree that more fine watches should offer a Quartz option (like Grand Seiko, Cartier and Tag Heuer). I am debating whether to buy a Chronomaster, Astron or Tudor—or perhaps Formex Essence, for my next watch. I am leaning towards Quartz.

I am on the fence about this. It costs the same as a Seiko 5, but you get Safire. I have the Baltany explorer homage in brown with fauxtina. I adore it. My problem with this is that one cannot easily flip it (unlike a Seiko 5). I feel like I might as well get the Hamilton (if I really like the design, I can spend real money). I need to stop buying inexpensive watches all the time (brands like Baltany make that difficult)

I have the Pepsi GMT. It is amazing.

I have two San Martin watches. One looks like a Black Bay gilt diver, and the other has applied Arabic numerals on an MOP dial (my only bronze watch—and shockingly high quality).

San Martin makes very good watches for the money, but they mostly look like other watches. I think they are a great choice for $250, but if Seiko started using sapphire instead of hardlex, and especially if Seiko actually spent an extra $5 per watch on the bracelet, all the Aliaexpress brands would fade away. They exist because Seiko abandoned the sun-$500 market. I always wonder what idiot Seiko executive thinks saving $10 by using hardlex makes any sense.

At that price you are better off saving up for a Seiko Sharp Edge GMT (beautiful, case & dial plus a good bracelet), or spending less for an NH34-based micro or way less for a Chinese watch (my sun-$300 Cronos keeps COSC-level accuracy and took a beating with style when I was delivering Chinese food during my recent spell of unemployment). Mostly, I just do not like the look of these. Phoibos makes a better-looking Quartz GMT for half the price.