Are Aliexpress Watches Any Good?

Aliexpress watches are growing in popularity among budget watch collectors, but are they any good? 

Well it depends. There are a lot of watches available on Aliexpress and a lot of them are cheap, poorly made homages, but things seem to be changing, luckily for the better.

While homage watches may still dominate the market, the quality is going up and you can now start to find some pretty decent watches on Aliexpress. The quality and price can both excellent and you should be taking a serious look at some of the watches that are now available.

Homage Watches On Aliexpress

The vast majority of watches on Aliexpress are homages of luxury brands. The watches may be great, but some people will just not like the idea of them being homages. This is totally fine and if you are put off by this, it is not a problem. To be honest some of the watches you can find are probably better labelled as clones, rather than homages as they can look pretty similar to the watches they are trying to take design cues from.

However, it is important to know that they are not counterfeit and do not claim to be the watches they are trying to homage, so although they make look similar, they are perfectly legal.

You can also find some original designs. They are harder to find and there is not too many of them, but over the last few years more and more are starting to appear and they can be pretty good.   

(You can read more about – Are Homage Watches Legal?)

Aliexpress Watches Depend On the Seller

While it’s important to look at the individual watch to see if it is any good, it is more important to look at the seller.

There are a lot of watch brands selling on Aliexpress and they will all have their own individual stores and ranges of watches. Some of these brands and the watches they offer will be of a far superior quality than others. 

In recent years these brands have started to rise to the top and have become well known and trusted among budget watch collectors. You know what you will get when you buy from these brands and the watch you get should be of good quality and can rival anything you might find on your local high street.

Aliexpress Watch Reviews

When it comes to Aliexpress watches, price isn’t automatically the best indicator of quality. Some super cheap watches can be amazing and some of the more expensive ones might just be lacking.

It can also be very easy for brands to take amazing pictures and write great descriptions of the watch, so it can be a hard to tell what brands are actually the good ones and what watches are worth the money.

This is why you need to look at the reviews.

Firstly you can look on Aliexpress and see the reviews people have left. It is of course easy to manipulate these but if you are seeing quite long and detailed reviews, they are far more likely to be real. While I’m sure plenty of the reviews that just read “great watch” are legit, it’s still not very helpful.

Aliexpress also shows on each listing how many times the item has been sold. This can help you gauge how popular a watch and a certain seller is. Obviously the higher this is, the more likely it is to be good watch.

Secondly you should check on YouTube. Check for reviews of the watch itself and the brand. You will very quickly get a picture of what the watches are like and if they are worth your time. I find the YouTube reviews are very honest and will clearly point out any little faults or overall issues with the watch.

 Just do your research and listen to the reviews. They will keep you right.

Quality Control With Aliexpress Watches

One of the biggest down falls with Aliexpress watches is the quality control. When you look at watches on the website they often have amazing specifications, but when the watch is in your hand it doesn’t quite live up to what you expect and this is usually down to a lack of quality control.

We need to remember that the watches on offer are often very cheap and in order for the company to still make a profit, as well as to provide the specifications they are offering, it means corners need to be cut elsewhere. This is unfortunately, usually in the quality control department.

You will often notice small things like poor build quality, or bad finishing, especially with things like polished edges. The movements can often be dirty or poorly oiled and things like lume can be applied very badly and unevenly. These are never good to see but you can understand how and why it happens with watches at this price point.

This is why it is even more important to check the reviews and find out what watches are providing good specs and actually executing what they are offering. 

Are There Cheap Parts In Aliexpress Watches?

We need to remember that a lot of these watches will contain cheap parts. This is understandable given how much they cost to buy and this isn’t always a bad thing.

A lot of watches contain movements like the NH35. These are very cheap, but are actually very reliable and accurate movements. Usually when it comes to watches the quality and the price are often equally matched. The more you pay, the better the watch.

However, this is not always true. Sometimes you can pay very little and the quality will far outweigh the price that you have paid. This can be the case with many Aliexpress watches, especially where they have cheap, but excellent quality parts such as the NH35s.

Manage Expectations

I strongly believe that Aliexpress watches can be good, but you do need to manage your expectations somewhat.  The vast majority of the watches, even the better quality ones, are cheap homages.  We always need to remember that. These may often look like luxury watches, but they are certainly not luxury watches.

Sometimes these watches are around the same price as a Casio, who spoil us. They make amazing watches, at a very low price. However, Casio watches are seen by everyone as cheap every day watches. There is no fuss about them. We just love them for what they are.

For some reason when it comes to Aliexpress watches we seem to have such high expectations, when we should really be treating them like we do other affordable high street brands, it’s just that they often happen to look like more luxurious brands.

Aliexpress Watches Brands That Are Good

So I have talked a lot about researching the brands and the watches to see if they are good quality, but I am sure you are all wanting me to name a few to help you get your bearings. So I will – San Martin, Cronos, Sea-Gull, Ironwatch, Pagani Design.

This list could go on, but start with these and I would still suggest you still do your research and decide for yourself if the designs, quality and price of these watches are something you think is good value.

Conclusion

If you do your research and pick out the right watches form the right brands you will end up with a good watch from Aliexpress. Usually you can find some remarkable value and excellent quality and i am sure you will be very happy with the watches you buy.

If you do this you should stay clear of the awful watches that are also available an often give then website a bad name. don’t let these bad watches fool you, Aliexpress does have some great offerings.

(If you are worried about ordering a watch from Aliexpress, you can read more information about – Is Buying A Watch From Aliexpress Legit?)