=== The brand ===

Swatch is a Swiss company and has been around since 1983. It is probably one of the best known brands of watches and for me it is definitely the first brand that comes to mind when buying a watch. The Swatch Group is a huge corporation which also owns various other brands as well. Swatch also has a range of other jewellery items as well as watches. You can find Swatch either at stand alone stores, in department stores or often at airports. They have watches for men and women but obviously my experience is more of the womens ones.

Supposedly Swatch stands for second watch, as it was intended to indicate that you can have more than just one watch to last you years and suggest having more watches as accessories. Because this is their philosophy, the prices are fairly affordable. This suits me as I don't want to spend hundreds on a watch, at least not now when I am still a student! They tend to range from about £30 to £80.

Swatch has a very wide range of designs, including watches with plastic straps, leather straps or metal straps. They have ones which are very brightly coloured with playful designs, often including limited edition or "topical" ones, such as currently some London 2012 Olympics designs. They also have more timeless and classic ones, so it is not all novelty. Swatch also offers some sports and waterproof watches.

My last two watches were from Swatch.

=== Current watch ===

This is a silver watch from Swatch which I got as a birthday present from my boyfriend (at the time) two years ago. I think he paid about Euro60 for it but I can't remember exactly. I went with him to pick it out. I can't find the model number on the Swatch site so I can't tell you exactly which one it is.

I really like this watch and I have worn it almost every day for the last two years. I really like the fact that the Swatch watch faces are really thin, flat and sleek looking. This watch does not have any numbers on the face, it just has an hour and minute hand (no second hand) but is still very easy to read. The face has Swatch written in small writing, with a subtle floral design on the metal around the outside. The strap is silver with some cut outs in a floral design on either side. The strap is quite chunky, with metal links.

It does up with a clasp that you link through and then click to fasten. It can be made slightly tighter or looser depending where you link it. I use the tightest setting and even that is ever so slightly loose, but I like it like that as I don't want my watch tightly pressing into my wrist. It is not so loose that the face always falls to the wrong side.

It does not have any extra features like an alarm or date settings. All it has in the way of controls is a pin to pull out to set the time. This is done in the normal way of turning it and then pressing it back in to set it, and I have never had a problem with it. It can be a bit stiff pulling the pin out but I find that with all watches and better that than being too loose and coming out, stopping the watch, when not intended.

It has been quite durable and stayed in great condition for two years, but the other day I sadly managed to slightly scratch the face. I am not sure how I did it! It doesn't show up too badly but if the light catches the scratch you can definitely see it, so I will be thinking about getting a new watch now. I possibly could fix it by replacing the glass on the face but not sure if it is really cost effective to do so.

=== Previous watch ===

My previous watch had a chocolate brown leather strap and a blue face, which sounds a weird combination but it honestly looked lovely! I bought it from the duty free at Vienna airport four years ago, so it seems I have a habit now of keeping each Swatch watch for two years.

Like my current one, this watch did not have many extra features but I think it did have the date on it and it did have numbers marked on the face. It was really clear and easy to read.

The reason why I got rid of this watch and my ex boyfriend bought me the current one was that the strap wore out after two years, and it snapped at the part where it joined the face on one side. You can buy separate straps and I could have just replaced the strap but when he wanted to buy me a fully new one that was fine by me! The actual watch still continued to work for long after, and the watch mechanisms in these seem very reliable. They always kept accurate time for me. The batteries seem to last very well too as I never needed to replace them, and even the spare watch face of the old watch was still going strong last time I looked, as I kept it spare in case I ever did get a new strap for it. Not sure what I have done with it now though.

=== Over all ===

I have been happy with my Swatch watches and now that I want to replace my current one, Swatch will be the first brand I am going to look at. Luckily I am flying this week so I will have a look at the airport duty free.

I know I haven't talked about the full range, but they have so many different styles that I really can't begin to describe everything they have. Look at swatch.com to see everything.

I would definitely recommend this brand as worth a look for someone who wants a reliable, stylish but not too expensive watch.