So let's say there were only two types of beer in the world: Budweiser at (...) a bottle, and fancy high-end Belgian and German small batch craft brews that cost (...) a bottle. Assuming you couldn't afford the expensive stuff, what sort of experience and value would Bud give you at its price point? To put this in watch terms, let's say that you are intrigued and fascinated by Swiss automatics but can't afford them. You have decided to try the Invicta 8926 automatic divers watch to see what all the fuss is about. What would you get for your money?

The Good:

1) The watch is generally well made and looks a bit more expensive than its actual price. The bracelet in particular is attractive and heavy, with none of the lightweight tin can feel that some cheap watches offer. Fit and finish is decent, with a few exceptions (noted below in "The Bad").

2) The watch face rather shamelessly copies the Rolex Submariner, an elegant and subtle design. It is easily legible, attractive, and put together properly. (I.E. the second markers line up correctly on the face - Timex and Bulova owners may be unaccustomed to this!)

3) The rotating bezel feels surprisingly precise and you can feel each click. (Note though this model has a "scalloped" (deep) bezel rather than the Rolex coin-edge (thin) bezel, so the watch looks like someone took a Planet Ocean bezel from an Omega and grafted it on a Submariner.)

4) A functional automatic watch that can be hand-wound. No batteries needed, if you are reasonably active, say walk at least for a cumulative hour each day, this watch will keep itself wound and will never need a battery. The watch can build up a roughly 40 hour power reserve, so you can readily take it off over night, though to hit the max reserve in a day, you would need to move your arm about a lot. If you are less active than needed, you can also hand wind the crown as needed. (20 to 30 full clockwise turns should get you up to the max reserve.)

5) Waterproof! I didn't actually take the watch 200m down, but it survived some basic swimming and immersion in water. The crown is screw-down (unlike some of the more "fashionable" Invictas) which gives the 200m water resistant claim some credibility.

6) Exhibition caseback - turn the watch over and you can see how the 21 jewel Miyota (Citizen) automatic movement works. Interesting for a while, though eventually becomes mundane.

The Bad:

1) The bezel is occasionally stiff and un-cooperative. Mine is always easy to turn when I am not wearing the watch on my wrist, but sometimes it feels buried in mud when I try to rotate it while wearing it. The illusion of wearing a costly luxury watch is dispelled a bit when bystanders see you grunting and cursing as you try to set the bezel.

2) Lack of AR coating, especially for the date bubble. Emulating the Rolex date bubble without also putting anti-reflective coating causes the 8926's date magnifier to become a "light trap" that bounces glare into your eye whenever you try to read it with a strong overhead light.

3) Crudeness of the hand-winding. When you do actually hand-wind the Miyota 8215 movement, it feels like the crown is connected to a (...) wind up toy. The tactile feel is stiff and clunky, and the little "scritch scritch" sound is not impressive, like a mouse chewing on a piece of tin.

4) Lack of efficiency of the self-winding mechanism. The 8215 has a unidirectional rotor, meaning with each forward and backward movement of your arm, the watch mainspring only gets wound once. Most other automatics, cheap or costly, have bidirectional rotors, meaning back and forth equals two winds, not one. The hand-winding option offsets this to some extent.

5) Does not hack - you cannot stop the second hand once the watch is running. That makes it hard to set the watch to a precise time as you would with a quartz. As you will see in the next point though, you shouldn't worry too much about precision if you own this watch.

6) Timekeeping - my 8926 generally gains about 17 seconds each day. This is an average, and on some days it gained more than this, sometimes close to 30 seconds. This is more or less what can be expected from the unadjusted 8215 movement, but in comparison to other inexpensive autos (more later) this is not an especially inspiring performance. It may get better over time, but then it might also get worse. I could get it regulated, but that would cost more than half of the price of the watch, so why bother?

7) Customer Service - as you can see by skimming the one star reviews of this model, Invicta's quality control is pretty dicey, and many of these watches come out of the box with problems. Others develop problems while under warranty. In all cases, no one has nice things to say about Invicta's handling of warranty claims. This didn't happen to me (yet) but the Florida Better Business Bureau site gives Invicta an uninspiring D+ rating with over 80 complaints received in the last year. Even under warranty, the company charges you to ship the defective watch back to them, charges you a minimum of $28 for a repair even on a virtually new watch, and according to many accounts is difficult to communicate with to the point where owners end up sending post cards and waiting months for repairs to be made. None of this happened to me, as my 8926 is ok so far, but be warned that you are taking some risk by buying an Invicta 8926, at least if it should die outside the Amazon return period.

8) Maybe a little bit too much like the Rolex Submariner for comfort. Invicta has not made much of an effort to develop an individual brand identity, but seems content to imitate Rolex. By wearing the 8926, you will be letting folks know that you like the Submariner but can't afford a real one (unless you can, in which case maybe you should buy an actual one!). Moreover, as there are many cheap knockoffs available for less than the 8926 costs, people will assume that you paid LESS for your watch than you actually did. Again, the quality is good for the money, but the shameless Rolex impersonating adds an element of lameness to the entire act of wearing the watch and undermines the good things Invicta has going on here.

The Upshot:

1) I like this watch - it is plucky, seems tough, and has a lot of value to it in terms of features and unexpected levels of quality at its price point. It is probably 4 stars in terms of value alone.

2) However... the rotten timekeeping, the many accounts of bad customer service by other owners, and the lack of imagination leads me to deduct a star. Invicta can design its own distinctive watches (for better or worse, some of their originals are loathsome) but they charge much more for them. At this price point, they seem content to copy Rolex and make changes as needed when threatened by Swiss lawyers. I would like to see the 8926 have its own unique non-copycat look while keeping the same price point and value.

3) Also, we have to end the hypothetical now and bring in some competitors. At the same "Budweiser" price point of the 8926, the consumer can get Japanese automatics from Orient and Seiko that blow the 8926 away in terms of quality, original design, timekeeping accuracy, and customer service. The only reason to choose the 8926 over an Orient or Seiko is if you want a Rolex copy or if you are rabidly patriotic and would not buy Japanese.

4) Per my last point, even if you are Lee Iacocca, you may want to consider whether ANY American company is better than EVERY Japanese company. Invicta is incorporated in Florida, but the 8926 is made in China using parts purchased from Japan. Moreover, Invicta is known for questionable commercial tactics (like tripling or quadrupling the list prices of watches so every watch sold is at some immense discount...), having spotty quality control (check out the 1 and 2 star reviews here), poor customer service (ditto plus the BBB site), and in the case of the 8926, not much innovation or imagination in design. If patriotism is your only concern, the 8926 will trump something like the Orient Mako or Seiko Model 5, but any sort of more objective comparison will leave the 8926 as the less desirable choice. Of course, at this price, you can probably buy one of each, which is what I did!