The Best Digital Watches for Every Budget in 2025

When it comes to digital watches, the sheer variety out there is enough to make your head spin. From bargain bin legends to futuristic masterpieces, while some of them are simple, no-fuss timekeepers, others are so wildly overengineered they genuinely make you wonder if you’re wearing a watch or a spaceship’s control panel. But, whether you’re spending less than the cost of a few monthly streaming subscriptions or dropping serious cash on something that looks like it fell out of Blade Runner, I can promise you there’s a digital watch out there for every wrist and budget…

Let’s be frank. When it comes to affordable, bargain basement digital watches, there is one that all others worship as king.

The Casio F-91W is where many of our watchmaking journeys began. Strangely, it might also be where they end, once we’ve realised that the honey gold rattrapante chronograph from A. Lange & Söhne we’d been chasing all those years isn’t quite as good at timing how long it takes the lawnmower robot to do its rounds. People say we wear nappies when we’re born and when we die. I’d take the F-91W over Pampers any day.

Okay, so this one probably shouldn’t be here on the list even though it is clearly the coolest digital watch you can buy for around £300. Why? Because you can’t buy it for around £300.

You’ll need around ¥57,000. And that’s assuming you’re in Japan. Why? Because this incredibly timely Timex is a stainless steel reissue of the classic Ironman model we children of the eighties and nineties have all been going gaga for since it was released way back in 1986 has only been released in Japan…

I checked the price of a round trip to Tokyo from London. You’ll want to budget around £1,500. Therefore, this watch could be yours for something around £1,800. That’s one heck of a premium, I know, but to be honest, I’m not even convinced it isn’t worth it...

Naughty Casio has discontinued its best-ever version of the previously peerless Mudmaster and replaced it with a lineup that looks more like knock-off versions of this once-proud collection than it does a credible evolution.

And it is such a shame. At around £700, the Casio G-Shock Mudmaster has long been one of my most beloved for the crazy amount of tech, durability, and, yes, style it brings to the wrist.

The first generation (GWG-1000-1A3JF) was a warrior. It looked like the aforementioned F-91W had popped out the finest of sprogs with a Land Rover Defender (an old one). The second-gen was a weird departure that slashed the price (and sex appeal) in half, reverting to a basic Bluetooth movement instead of the cool multi-function, radio-controlled quartz of the older model.

Then came the third iteration. I was already sore about the lacklustre follow-up to what is still one of my most used and abused watches and didn’t expect Casio would be able to win me back around.

How wrong I was.

The third generation (GWG-2000-1A3) changed the ergonomics of the case subtly but significantly. The watch was longer but slimmer, and lower profile on the wrist as a result. The material transitions were masterfully managed. From carbon to steel, from steel to resin, the multi-layered bezel is a thing of beauty. Everything I’d loved from the first generation was back but cranked up to 11 (maybe even 12). To me, it isn’t even a question as to whether this is the greatest Casio watch of all time. At this price point, I think it might the very best the world has ever seen bar none.

And then Casio came up with the GWG-B1000-3A. Whenever I look at it, I just hear “DUUUUUUUUHHHHHH” ripping through my brain. If it isn’t obvious, I’m genuinely angry.

My advice for avoiding similar rage? Keep an eye on this family of watches and pull the trigger the moment Casio realises the GWG-B1000-3A is getting it nowhere and the GWG-2000-1A3 was on the right path all along.

The only mechanical digital watch on our list. The Spaceone Jumping hours couldn’t have been ignored. The brand’s contribution to entry-level horology has, despite only rolling out two models thus far, been notable. The Jumping Hours (of which the Iridized steel version is my favourite available model) was the first piece brought to market by the brand, but the follow-up — the SpaceOne Tellurium — has completely turned expectations of what is possible in this strata on their head.

Don’t sleep on SpaceOne. They are moving in the right direction and we should all go along with them if we can!

The rerelease of the Casquette was a wonderful thing. This titanium and gold version is a sumptuous thing. The little gold badge atop the shell-like case brings out the warmth and the yellow hues of the titanium deftly. At around £3,915 at the time of writing, this somehow feels like a bargain. The name is iconic; the look is seldom seen; and the execution of this piece should serve as a reminder that quartz watches can not only be cool too, but that if tried a little harder, they could be the coolest of them all...

I remember Devon Tread watches bursting onto the scene when I first started writing about watches a decade ago. As a more naive collector and an avid Star Wars fan, I felt like the future had arrived and that Devon had completely redefined how we’d be reading time in the future.

Also, and let me know in the comments below if this is true for you too: these always evoked something deeply personal in me. A feeling from my childhood. They remind me of something but I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe my dad’s manually adjusted bakelite desktop calendar, or Transformers figures, or perhaps something as simple as a cassette tape.

If it comes to you, let me know. I’ve been chasing smoke around my memory for ten years and it’s driving me mad.

Not as mad as Casio made me, though. Nothing makes me madder than that…