A watch with quartz movement is a watch with no mechanical moving parts. A quartz watch does not need the expensive, time-consuming maintenance that traditional mechanical watches require. Quartz, too, has only one superior in time-keeping accuracy, and that's the atomic clock that is not yet technologically feasible as a wristwatch.

There are watches that call themselves atomic, but they are usually quartz and just receive an occasional resetting radio signal from a real atomic clock.  In quartz movement, a tiny quartz tuning fork, manufactured from a pure, man-made quartz crystal, is tipped with gold leaf then laser stripped of just enough gold to allow vibrations of exactly 32,768 hertz (cycles per second). The vibration creates an electric charge that is translated into movement advancing the time marker by one second or some other unit of measurement. The source of the power that starts the vibration in the tuning fork is most frequently a battery. Because quartz movement requires so much less space than traditional mechanical works, the watch can be sleeker. 

Designer Watches for Men

Traditional hand-made, high-end Designer Watches for Men like Rolex or Bulgari, have managed to hold onto a slim 13 percent niche market. Other designer watches for men utilize quartz movement. Cartier, whose Ballon Bleu tank watch with traditional Swiss mechanics has an MSRP of over $20,000, can sell its quartz version for an MSRP in the mid $5,000s. Quartz can be offered at such a lower price because it takes fewer hours of painstaking hand placement of parts. The quartz version offers the same great looks, and it is a more accurate time keeper. A newer designer of watches for men is Michael Kors. He offers exceptionally attractive watches like his two-tone men's chronograph but at much lower prices than the traditional designers. 

Designer Watches for Women

Designer watches for women took a bit of a different path. Because women are less tied to the traditional and love the thinness achieved by quartz, even Bulgari and Rolex build their women's watches with quartz movement. From Bulgari's over $50,000 18-karat gold and diamond bracelet watch, to Chanel's $13,000 range Ceramic, to Michael Kors' Runway Glitz in a gold-tone stainless at under $300, Designer Watches for Women  are often more stylish jewelry than functional timekeeper.  Both designer watches for men and designer watches for women are available at the very high end of the price range to the more accessible lower end. With a few high-end men's exceptions, all are available with the more accurate quartz movement. Unless a man is a style-conscious traditionalist staying with the preciseness of a Swiss-built mechanical watch, quartz will be the watch movement of choice.