The Complete Guide to Q Timex: Affordable Watches Making Quartz Cool Again

With a range of models and options, the popular Q Timex is an affordable phenomenon.

q timex on wristPhoto by Zen Love for Gear Patrol

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Q is for “quartz.” In the Timex universe it is, anyway.

The modern Q Timex offers fashionably vintage aesthetics at very accessible prices, the collection is also much more than that: it represents a minor cultural and conceptual coup within the world of watch enthusiasm.

The Q Timex (or Timex Q, if you prefer) is an unlikely hype phenomenon that helped make quartz timekeeping cool again after a decade of disparagement. The collection keeps growing and evolving with a steady pace of new models that often sell out.

It’s hard to imagine, but some of the most viral Timex Q releases can be harder to land than a Rolex.

Where did the Q Timex come from?

In the 1970s, battery-powered quartz movements began taking over the watch industry, which had been using mechanical winding and escapements for centuries. This monumental shift, known as the Quartz Crisis or Quartz Revolution–depending on your perspective, seemed to force every watch company to choose between adaptation and demise.

closeup of blue watch dial
The Q Timex is all about being out loud and proud of its quartz nature. Seen here is the brilliant dial of the Q Falcon Eye.
Photo by Zen Love for Gear Patrol

Quartz was celebrated and emphasized as the latest, cutting-edge tech for your wrist. The Q Timex was one of the most successful examples before cheap mass production would later give quartz watches a lowly rep.

By the early twenty-first century, watch collectors valued mechanical movements for their history, craftsmanship and luxury status. They looked down on simpler quartz movements as woefully inferior despite being exponentially more accurate over long timeframes.

How has the Q Timex been modernized?

The Q Timex watches of the 1970s emphasized their quartz nature as a selling point. Some of them featured a “Q” as the 12 o’clock marker, and others proudly emblazoned “QUARTZ” on their dials the way modern watches will advertise “Automatic.”

When Timex brought the Q back in 2019, the general assumption was that if a watch didn’t mention the movement’s nature on its dial, it was quartz. This was because most companies preferred to gloss over a quartz watch’s movement altogether.

timex q gmt watch with red and blue bezel and steel bracelet
The Q Timex GMT has obvious inspiration but can hold its own aesthetically.
Photo by Zen Love for Gear Patrol

Timex’s Q series began with a reissue of a certain model from the 1970s featuring a look very much inspired by the Rolex GMT Master with a bicolor red-and-blue 12-hour bezel (though not with GMT functionality).

The word “QUARTZ” proudly adorned its dial above 6 o’clock. It stayed true to the original model aesthetically, even maintaining smaller diameters, but of course, incorporating more modern elements like current materials, quartz tech and production.

That model, however, was only the beginning. The line has since expanded to include all manner of vintage reissues and creative riffs. It even includes a small number of automatic watches with an “M” designation (as in the M79) for mechanical.

What makes the Timex Q so popular?

What’s the reason it all works so well? Being highly affordable is a big part of it.

Bringing back popular retro styles and turning the quartz angle into storytelling has proven to be a clever and winning combination. Many Q watches punch well above their weight and offer affordable analogs to famous luxury watches.

blue timex watch on persons wrist
Q Timex chronographs punch well above their weight.
Timex

The approach of “embracing quartz” not only recalled the brand’s and the technology’s history but also gave the Q a sharp, slightly contrarian edge. Timex wasn’t the first watchmaker to reframe quartz as something cool and interesting, but it has been the most successful.

The Q doesn’t take itself too seriously. Its large and always fresh range of options, combined with approachable prices, keeps things fun.

Here are some of the best Q Time models available right now.

Q Timex Reissue

Here it is: the OG. This is the first iteration of the modern Q that was introduced in 2019 and was known to sell out quickly. Since then, however, it’s become just one among many iterations featuring the same underlying model and specs but offered in myriad colors, some of which come and go with time.

  • Diameter: 38mm
  • Color Variants: 3

Q Timex Synthetic Rubber Strap

The only way to make this sporty dive watch even sportier and more useful for diving is to add a synthetic rubber strap, so that is exactly what Timex did for the next version of the original Q Timex reissue.

  • Diameter: 38mm
  • Color Variants: 2

Q Timex GMT

With its bicolor bezel, the original Q Timex was stylistically based on the Rolex GMT Master. In 2022, Timex finally offered what fans were asking for and added the GMT function.

  • Diameter: 38mm
  • Color Variants: 1

Q Timex GMT Synthetic Rubber Strap

Timex fans spoke and the brand listened: The newest version of the Q Timex GMT swaps out the steel link bracelet for a sporty synthetic rubber.

  • Diameter: 38mm
  • Color Variants: 2

Q Timex 1975 Enigma Reissue

This funky reissue plays with negative space and color to create the appearance that the hands are two small rectangles and a red dot floating around a gray-blue void. The domed acrylic crystal enhances the effect when viewed from the side.

  • Diameter: 37mm
  • Color Variants: 1

Q Timex Falcon Eye Chronograph

Timex’s most dedicated foray into the luxury sports watch genre boasts expensive looks at a bargain price thanks to its deep blue, Côtes de Genève-finished dial and flat-link integrated-style bracelet.

  • Diameter: 40mm
  • Color Variants: 2

Q Timex Chronograph

Want a chronograph with that retro Q look? Here it is. And in keeping with the vintage aesthetics and incorporating the kind of traits watch enthusiasts are known to appreciate, it’s offered in “panda” and “reverse-panda” (shown here) variants.

It also comes with a steel bracelet for $229.

  • Diameter: 40mm
  • Color Variants: 3

Q Timex 1978 Reissue Day Date

The Q collection isn’t just about the dive-style watches it’s most associated with — it also is where great reissues like this dress watch live. You’ll have a hard time finding a watch with the same level of vintage style and details in the same price range as Timex offers in this surprisingly pleasing dress watch package.

  • Diameter: 38mm
  • Color Variants: 2

Q Timex 1972 Reissue

Like the 1978 Reissue above, this 1972 Reissue is another example of Timex just being able to offer really cool, one-off remakes of vintage styles that would otherwise cost you much more. It’s got all the funky ’70s style you could want and suits those who prefer bigger watches with its 43mm diameter.

  • Diameter: 43mm
  • Color Variants: 1

Q Timex Reissue Degrade

Degrade refers to the fading pattern on the dial which emulates patina. This retro Timex has the appearance of an integrated bracelet, but the steel president bracelet is actually removable.

  • Diameter: 38mm
  • Color Variants: 1

Q Timex Falcon Eye

This easy everyday watch is soaked in 1970s chic, from the pronged hands and indices to the rich mahogany dial. The woven stainless steel bracelet drapes over the wrist like fabric.

  • Diameter: 38mm
  • Color Variants: 2

World Time 1972 Reissue

Also hailing from 1972, this Reissue offers a sportier style with interesting case and bezel shapes. Note that despite its name and the names of cities on its bezel, there’s no functionality for tracking other time zones as in true world time watches.

  • Diameter: 39mm
  • Color Variants: 1

Q Timex Malibu

  • Diameter: 36mm
  • Color Variants: 5

Timex took the basic design of its core Q watches (see above) and gave them a bit of a makeover. They join a line of 36mm versions but feature colors that look ripped from 1980s California (or the Barbie movie) which continue right onto their expansion bracelets. A similarly colorful sub-line of two Q Timex Rainbow watches are essentially offshoots of the Malibu.