70s Chic is back with the Tissot PRX Powermatic 80

To the uninitiated, the Tissot PRX just looks like a stylish timepiece with a great 1970s vibe. To watch enthusiasts, however, we finally have a Royal Oak-esque watch that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, comes with an incredible integrated steel bracelet and most importantly comes with all the provenance that a brand within the mighty Swatch Group brings.

Let’s not kid ourselves, for every grail watch – Submariners, GMT Masters, Royal Oaks, Nautilus – there are homage versions that you can buy out there. For the most part, these watches are usually cheap Chinese-made pieces that do the bare minimum to churn out a copy, slap on a weirdly named logo, and hope to turn a profit through sales volume. So, when something like the PRX comes out of a Swiss brand like Tissot, it’s not surprising that many of us already have our credit cards whipped out.

I mean, what’s not to like? Even without the Royal Oak style “Tapisserie” dial, it is still a steel sports watch with an integrated bracelet from a reputable Swiss manufacture at under MYR 3,000. The design of the PRX comes from a model that Tissot designed in the 1970s, so it’s not really a ‘Royal Oak’ clone per se. This original piece was fitted with a quartz movement allowing the case to be rather slim. Originally, the modern PRX also came with a quartz movement but now the PRX even offers a mechanical Powermatic 80 movement. 80 hours of power reserve and a Nivachron balance hairspring that is resistant to magnetic forces. Again, under MYR 3,000.

For enthusiasts, the mechanical movement will probably be the factor that tips them over the Tissot PRX fence but even if you are not, there is a quartz version that comes with a slightly different dial and an even more affordable price tag.

The Tissot PRX Powermatic 80 has a retail price of MYR 2,800 for the blue or black dial version and MYR 2,900 for a dual-tone version in steel and rose gold PVD.