Watches are a tool. They tell the time, that is their job. But there is a certain level of novelty and pride in wearing a nice watch.
There are 3 different types of movements, more if we use kinetic, solar, etc. from companies (these movements are not widely used). The three most popular types of movements used by almost all companies are quartz (runs off a battery, the most accurate timekeeper of the three), mechanical (hand-wound, uses a mainspring to power the watch) and automatic (uses a rotor to wind the mainspring, it winds by the movement of your wrist, so there is no need to have to hand-wind it). The easiest way to identify an automatic or mechanical watch is to look at the second hand. If it is sweeping, it is a mechanical or automatic watch. It the second hand moves once a second, it is quartz. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as the Bulova Precisionist but they are rare. There is a certain level of craftsmanship that in a mechanical watch, which is why someone will pay more for a watch that is less accurate. Many people will think of this as counter-intuitive, I mean, a watch is there to tell the time, so why would you pay more for something that doesn't do it's job as well? The answer is inside the watch. All the springs and gears working in harmony is far superior to the pieces of sand in a quartz movement. The fact that a high-quality automatic movement sounds like nothing else, that it is hand-built and uses so many parts to get the job done. Almost all "luxury" brands have their own in-house movements that only they use. Companies that do not have the machinery, or skill to make the movements and the parts in them will use movements from companies such as ETA (Swiss), Valijoux (Swiss, famous for the 7750, 28,800 BPH automatic chronograph), Seagull (Asian), Miyota (Asian, owned by Citizen, widely used and reliable workhorses for the industry). Miyota makes quartz, mechanical and automatic, as does Seagull. However, Seagull is one of the only movement makers who makes a tourbillon and a even double-axis tourbillon. But really All you need to know is: Automatic uses a rotor to wind the mainspring, mechanical needs to be wound and quartz runs off a battery.
