Tissot PR100 Review: Precise, Robust and (Nearly) Perfect

Not too long ago, the Seiko SARB033 was once one of the champions of the frugal-wristed. For about $300 you could have a high quality movement that went toe-to-toe with Sellita and ETA, which was cased in a sexy, classy case with a clean, sleek dial, complete with 100m of water resistance. Now, after Seiko decided to strangle the gray market, a BNIB SARB033 can cost you well over a grand.

What is there to do, then? Most people wouldn't want to pay that much for a $1k watch that was worth $300 four or so years ago; only die hard Seiko collectors with more money than brain cells would do such a thing. Seiko does have a viable alternative, the SZSB012, but that's a 4R35-powered JDM model that you can only get secondhand from Japanese retailers or randos on eBay, r/watchexchange and Watchuseek, often with exorbitant markups. But now, decades after Seiko brought the Swiss watch industry to its knees, the Swatch Group (or more accurately, the forces of the gray market) has beaten Seiko at its own game with the Tissot PR100 Powermatic 80 (ref. T101.407.16.051.00).

Coming in at just $250, this PR100 is, undoubtedly, the best value in Swiss watchmaking. Equipped with the Swatch Group's famous Powermatic 80 movement, which has an unprecedented power reserve of 80 hours, it even beats Seiko's Spring Drive in terms of longevity. And it gets even better, too: the black sunburst dial, which comes with applied, polished indices, is crisp and elegant, it has a sapphire crystal, see-through caseback,100m of water resistance, a very wearable case, and a thoughtfully-placed date at 6 o'clock.

The company behind this effort, Tissot, is one of the most storied brands in horology. Started in 1853-one year before Timex, 28 before Seiko, and 52 before Rolex-by a father and son team in Le Locle, Tissot has always been a mainstay of Swiss watchmaking for the working man. Even in the days of the pocket watch they were producing good quality timepieces for the discerning customer who couldn't afford a Breguet or a Vacheron Constantin. They're also one of the great pioneers in the history of horology; they made the first mass produced pocket watch, the first dual-time pocket watch, the first antimagnetic wristwatch, and they even made Swatch's spiritual predecessor, the Idea 2001, which was the first watch made out of plastic. It was even followed up by timepieces made out of stone, wood and even mother of pearl. Suffice to say, this watch comes from one of the best in the industry, not just some microbrand whose only achievements are making a NH35-powered, 200m water-resistant, "vintage-inspired" dive watch with a meteorite dial and Tudor-style snowflake hands, and whose owners are jerked off by watch influencers.

The PR100 is a member of Tissot’s “PR” (short for Precise and Robust) family of watches. They are designed to be relatively affordable, well-made Swiss timepieces that can be worn for many kinds of occasions. They also aren’t limited to three-hand, mechanical, stainless steel, 100m WR, jack-of-all-trades-but-ace-of-none watches, either; there have been PR quartz chronographs, PR sports watches, PR skindivers, PRs with 50m of water resistance, PRs made out of titanium; the list goes on. The most notable PR is one of the watch world's golden boys, the PRX, which basically gives you everything that's hot right now for well under a grand.

The biggest value proposition for the PR100, as I just mentioned, is the movement. The Powermatic 80 and its kissing cousins (such as the Hamilton H80) can be found in the company's mid-tier brands, like Hamilton, Mido, Certina, and obviously Tissot. This automatic movement is essentially an ETA 2824-2 whose beat rate has been decreased to 21,600 as opposed to the typical 28,800, thus resulting in an absurdly high power reserve for the money. It's only until you start going into true luxury watch territory where you start finding movements and watches that can top the Powermatic 80's longevity, like IWC’s Calibre 52010, Panerai's P.5000, and (in spite of their shoddy QC and questionable styling) Hublot's MP-5 LaFerrari. Like a normal ETA 2824-2 the PR100 hacks and handwinds, though this Powermatic 80 variant (called the Powermatic 80.121) has 23 jewels as opposed to the ETA’s typical 25. The movement is also very pleasing to wind, giving an oh-so-satisfying noise when you turn the signed crown. Even setting the date and time feels satisfying; the date function satisfyingly clicks like a single-action revolver and manipulating the crown feels reassuring, which comes with just enough resistance to make setting the time feel gratifying.

The case, like a SARB's, is also well-proportioned. Coming with a diameter of 39mm, a lug-to-lug length of 47mm, a thickness of 10.39mm and a lug width of 20mm, the PR100 is a well-proportioned watch that is very much in the Goldilocks zone; it can fit a variety of wrists well and is equally at home with a dress shirt as it is with jeans and a tee. It's brushed case and polished bezel help the watch look sporty yet more refined and mature than it's beefier, less versatile fraternal twin, the PRS-516.

As I said earlier, the PR100 comes with a sapphire crystal as standard, which means that you’d probably have to rob a Kay Jewelers in order to find something that could damage the crystal. While it’s essentially unscratchable, the PR100’s crystal picks up fingerprints like nothing I’ve ever seen. If you plan on getting one of these, I’d be prepared to use your shirt to clean your watch quite often.

The lume on the PR100 is probably the best in my collection. I'm not well-versed in lume types but the minute and hour hands emit a strong, teal hue that lasts for a good long while, so I guess it's BGW9. It's so good that a while ago I woke up half asleep and I checked my PR100 for the time, and I could clearly tell that it was 1:50 am, even though the watch hadn't been exposed to direct light for hours.

The fake alligator strap that comes with the PR100 is serviceable, yet nothing spectacular. I'd reckon it's on par with what you get with a Seiko, or maybe a cheap Hadley-Roma you got at the "watchmaker"'s kiosk at the local mall; you know, that one owned by the sweaty, aging dude that spends his time in between jobs watching Fox News and has a penchant for scratching up your dad’s quartz Pro Diver when he changes the battery. Thankfully, though, one of the PR100's great strengths is that due to its rather conservative look, it can go with a variety of straps; leather, perlon, steel bracelets; hell, you could probably throw it on a NATO and pretend you're Sir Edmund Hilary, an American soldier in the Vietnam War, or some yuppie jerkoff who writes for Hodinkee by wearing a dressy-ish everyday watch on a strap meant for fully dedicated tool watches. Personally I alternate between a Horween leather from Archer, some random quick release mesh bracelet I found on Amazon and a single-pass Mil-Spec strap from CountyComm. Not only do they look good on the PR100, but they feel great too.

But, there's a side of the PR100 that's not so good...literally. The backside of the PR100 has a see-through caseback which lets you see the Powermatic 80 inside of it. While beautiful, the eagle-eyed will notice that there's no slots for a caseback removal tool. This is because the only way to get it off is by using a knife or similarly thin but dangerously sharp object and prying it open like a frustrated dad wrenching on the Ol' Girl, all the while horribly scratching up your caseback. And when you do manage to get the press-on caseback off, you'll notice that there's no practical  way to easily regulate the movement, due to the lack of any kind of regulator arm. Instead, Tissot felt that the balance wheel should have two regulator screws, like a Rolex. Although it is possible to regulate, doing so is very risky if you don’t have the right tools or expertise. If you're not careful the screws just come off the balance wheel, essentially breaking the watch. I know this because I had a Powermatic 80-powered watch that I adored that ran -10spd, and I tried to regulate myself. Suffice to say, it didn’t end well.

So, essentially, this means that if you're unhappy with the accuracy of your PR100 and you’re not interested in potentially destroying your watch, you'll have to ship it to the Swatch Group's service center in New Jersey (or wherever the closest Swatch Group service center is in your home country) so they can do some techno-wizardry and "laser regulate" it, whatever that means. Although mine runs pretty well at -5spd with a beat error of 0.2, I still wish I had the opportunity to easily regulate the movement on my own.

This, I feel, is the PR100's (and all timepieces that use the Powermatic 80) biggest flaw; in their quest to revolutionize mechanical timekeeping for the masses, the Swatch Group, either through greed or a lack of consumer savvy, essentially disallowed the true democratization of their watches. Although you could argue that Tissot and the Swatch Group at large only want qualified professionals to work on their watches, it's a big bummer that they don't trust their own customers enough to allow them to easily tinker with their favorite watches. Such arrogance, one could argue, caused watch enthusiasts and the average consumer at large to start buying Japanese and even Chinese watches instead of Swiss ones, which inevitably led us to today, where Billy Bob from Grand Island, Nebraska thinks he's a watchmaker because he sells $800 modded Seiko divers on eBay that are on par with a Submariner fauxmage from Aliexpress.

Yet again, one can't doubt the inherently enticing deal you can get with the PR100. It's one of the best deals you can get for a watch made by a well-established company that's clearly been around the block a few times. The PR100 is very much in line with Tissot’s original mission: to provide great Swiss timepieces for everyone. And even with its flaws, nobody can scoff at that.