Tissot PRX Powermatic 80 Review: One Watch To Rule Them All

The 70s were weird for a lot of people. Amidst all the now-classic records, bell-bottom jeans and wild hair, the cars they drove and the politicians they elected let them down consistently. It scared a lot of people into thinking the US was going to end horribly any day, through nuclear war or bad disco music.

The 70s were also scary to the Swiss watch industry. Inundated with the arrival of mass-produced Asian timepieces, Rolex, Omega, Patek Phlilippe and basically every Swiss (and Western for that matter) watch company was struggling to scrape by. Their watches were now seen as things square and unhip people bought; if you had serious cash, you’d buy a Seiko Astron or a Hamilton Pulsar. Though the Swiss managed to survive by working together against the forces of Seiko and Citizen, their influence over the common working man (or woman) was lost, being relegated to aspirational items that you can only receive after purchasing nine ladies’ models for the fish in the sea you haven’t caught yet.

One of these struggling companies was Tissot. One of the more modest brands coming from the world’s most agreeable country, the Le Locle-based watchmaker had always prided itself on making high quality Swiss-made timepieces for regular human beings, not jetsetters or Hodinkee staff. This still was Tissot’s modus operandi in the late 70s when they introduced a very particular Seastar model with a time-and-date quartz movement and a integrated steel bracelet, which took heavy inspiration from contemporary sports watches of the time, like the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, the Patek Philippe Nautilus, the Vacheron Constantin 222 and the Rolex Oysterquartz. Tissot would later rename this particular Seastar to the PRX, an acronym for Precise, Robust and 100, with the Roman Numeral for ten-X-representing 100 meters of water resistance.

Now, it’s 2022, and people are so distraught by the current decade only two years in that they wish for the wacky uncertainty of the 70s. You see it everywhere: women wear pantsuits, the aesthetic zeitgeist favors retro minimalism and by some Hail Mary miracle disco has made a comeback. Everyone wishes it was 1978, and so does Tissot, which is shown through one of their greatest releases since the new millennium: the reissue of the PRX.

The PRX I have technically isn’t the “true” successor to the original quartz Seastar, as mine comes with the coveted Powermatic 80 movement. As I stated in my PR100 review, the Powermatic 80 is essentially a standard ETA 2824-2 that’s been modified by Tissot to run at 21,600bph instead of 28,800, which results in the power reserve jumping from the standard 38 hours to 80. I actually resisted getting a PRX for a long time because I didn’t want the quartz model since it would make me want the automatic version, but I didn’t want the automatic version because it would be basically the same as my PR100, albeit with an integrated bracelet.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The PRX feels substantially denser than the PR100 thanks to its superb bracelet. The movement is also slightly different; The PR100 has the Powermatic 80.121 while the PRX has the Powermatic 80.111. The only real differences I noticed between the two was that 1. The 111 has a stainless steel rotor instead from a matte black one, and 2. The 111 has a Nivachron balance spring, which is a proprietary, titanium-derived alloy used by Tissot that helps negate the side effects of magnetism and temperature changes.

Another-albeit minor-improvement that comes with the PRX is its crystal. While the PR100 and PRX both use sapphire, the PR100’s crystal would pick up fingerprints like David "Lard-Ass" Hogan ate pies. The PRX doesn’t have that problem, though; while it will pick up skin oils, it doesn’t seem to attract them like flies to fecal matter.

Despite being upsized from its grandpa, the PRX wears just right on my 7.5 inch wrist. It has a 42.9mm diameter with the crown (about 39.5 without), a thickness of 11.5mm and an effective length of 48.1mm with the endlinks (44.5 without), the PRX is just about faultless in its sizing. While I’m personally getting a little tired of 34-38mm watches, I don’t really like monstrously huge ones like my Precisionist, and the PRX’s dimensions are perfect.

The brushing and finishing of the PRX is probably the best I’ve seen on any watch I’ve ever bought. The top and sides of the bracelet are brushed to an exceptional standard, while the edges and bezel are polished. The embossed checkered dial is flawless, and there’s not a single speck of dust under the crystal or on the dial. The dial also has a slight sunburst effect to it, though it’s not as prominent as the PR100’s. The hands and markers are also beautifully finished. In very certain lighting conditions, the hands practically disappear into the dial, so I’m glad Tissot decided to add lume to the hands.

The lume on this watch is serviceable, albeit unspectacular. Even though it has BGW-9 there isn’t a lot of it on the markers, but thankfully Tissot added two batons at 12, so it’s easier to distinguish them in low light conditions.

My only real gripes with the PRX is in regards to regulating the movement; it’s an issue I had with its more modern, straight-laced cousin, the PR100. Because Tissot decided to ditch the regulating arm found in the 2824-2, it’s much harder to regulate by yourself. Although mine is running fine at -8spd with minimal beat error, I wish it was easier to adjust it yourself instead of relying on the Swatch Group. You’ll also probably have to send it to them for servicing, which stinks. But on the other hand, the people fixing/servicing your watch will bring it back to factory standards. And like the PR100, the PRX’s caseback is friction fit instead of screw-down, so actually opening it may prove challenging.

There’s a saying here in the US: “God created men equal. Samuel Colt made them equal.” Colt was one of the first men to mass-produce high-quality firearms that simultaneously advanced the field with innovative designs and features; the first double-action revolver, for instance, was a Colt gun. But now I think you can also say “God created men equal. Sylvain Dolla made them equal.” Dolla said in an interview with Teddy Baldassare that the first thing he did as Tissot’s CEO was go into the archives and find the quartz Seastar the PRX would be based on.

And by doing this, Dolla essentially gave the watch community an egalitarian timepiece. No longer did you have to fight tooth and nail just to get a chance to buy a Nautilus or a Royal Oak, and you didn’t have to settle for a $100 Cadisen with no originality. For less than a grand you, too, could have a watch that encapsulated everything hot in the watch world right now from a respected company with serious history. Dolla proved to the world that Tissot are still with the times in a way many watch companies fail to be, and very much like their motto are innovators by tradition.