The 5 Best Watches That WatchGecko Reviewed in 2025

We have had many brilliant pieces come through the WatchGecko HQ this year. We are so grateful to all the brands that have trusted us with their beloved watches this year and look forward to getting hands on with many more in 2026.

To round of what was a brilliant year of watch reviews, I wanted to highlight my top five watches that we reviewed in 2025. These are watches that really stood out to me, whether it be for their design, purpose, quality, or they just made me feel really warm and fuzzy.

This is the second part of our best watches of 2025 articles, so make sure if you haven’t already, to go back and read our favourite new releases from this year as well!

This release from CW blew me away. They have had an incredible year for releases, the Loco, Sealander Extreme, Bel Canto Lumier, I could go on. But of all of them, it is the 660 that has my heart.

This watch is elegance personified in all of its dial colour combinations. Refined and high quality, this watch punches well above its price category. It reminds me of the beauty of the integrated bracelet watch designs of the 1970s but is in no way a homage or clone.

The movement has been customised with a skeletonised rhodium balance bridge showing CW’s further attention to detail and not settling for ‘off the shelf’ finishing. I love the new dial texture on this watch and prefer it to the original Twelve’s 3D design. It feels more subtle but still detailed when it catches the light in the right way.

And the best part of it all? The thickness, or lack thereof it! As the name suggests this watch is 6.6mm thick which is a remarkable thing for the brand to have achieved. And the result is a watch that wears unlike any CW before it.

Unlike anything else on this list (unless you count the integrated bracelet design of the 660) and unlike anything else we had at HQ this year, the White Surfer caught our attention with its full white ceramic case and sky-blue dial and movement.

The third collaboration watch between Zenith and Time+Tide, the White Surfer had some big shoes to fill. But fill them it did. Making far more of a statement than the comparatively previous collabs the final piece in the trilogy was a fitting end to the partnership between the two brands.

Featuring Zenith’s wonderful and famous ‘El Primero’ movement beating at 5Hz, this piece is accurate, reliable and mesmerising to watch with its 1/10 ^th second sub dial at 6 o’clock.

There’s something about the dial design and colour combined with the white ceramic case and bracelet that I just love. Like I said in my original review, I would probably never put down the £17,700 original asking price, but I still appreciate this watch for the collaborative effort and just how epic it is.

Not many brands would develop their own world timer movement, and if they did it would cost far too much for most to afford it. I’m thinking the likes of Patek Philippe and Omega that have managed to produce these watches with their own movements but have priced them out of the reach of mortal men.

This is where NOMOS comes in to once again save us from horological horror. At Watches and Wonders 2025 the brand launched a new Club Sport model featuring not only a new way to tell the time across the world, but a fully in-house developed movement.

The watch looks great, wears great, feels premium in all aspects, but costs a very reasonable £3,940. They didn’t stop there either, to add to the success of this launch NOMOS released a wave of limited-edition colourways. They sold out immediately of course, but then in September three more limited edition colours were launched, and it was the Trace colourway we got hands on with at HQ.

The functionality of this watch is wonderful. Each click of the pusher jumps the time zone an hour forward so you can always set it to the city you have travelled to with just a few clicks. The pusher and mechanism behind it feel crisp and precise. And the Club Sport case fits perfectly on-wrist. The three-link bracelet is well engineered, although the clasp being the opposite way round to most watches threw me off a few times. And I think the dial layout and colour options, although subjective, are brilliant.

I look forward to seeing more colourways for this model in the new year.

Precision is at the heart of every watchmaker’s ambition. And they don’t get much more precise than this, the Grand Seiko UFA ‘Ice Forest’. The UFA stands for Ultra Fine Accuracy, and this watch certainly lives up to its name. The new Spring Drive movement is accurate to +/- 20 seconds per year!

For those that are unfamiliar with Spring Drive, it takes the best features of both automatic and quartz movements to create some of the finest and most accurate calibres in the world. It has become Grand Seiko’s party piece and an industry standard for high-end watchmaking.

The other main feature of this watch I wanted to highlight is the dial. Take a moment to look at it. Look at the snow-covered trees that perfectly capture the magic of the ice forests in the north of Japan. It’s a thing of real beauty and compliments the high quality of watchmaking. The case at 37mm is also perfectly proportioned and pairs beautifully with its three-link bracelet but would equally look stunning on a vintage leather strap!

I have had the pleasure of getting hands on with many Serica watches this year. Whether it’s pieces we’ve had in to the HQ or ones I’ve been able to borrow some time with at the Time+Tide studio in London. As such, I have gained a deep appreciation for this brand in both its watches and the brand as a whole. But out of all their lineup, much like with CW this year, one watch stood high above the rest.

The ref. 5303 has been a successful model, cementing Serica’s reputation as a no-nonsense high-quality tool watch producer. And earlier this year they produced a limited-edition version with a new ‘Abyssal Blue’ ceramic bezel that was designed for ordnance clearing divers in the French military. The ‘DT Max’ scale is new to this watch and shows the wearer how long they can operate at different depths under the surface without having to do a decompression stop on the way up. A handy feature when working with objects that could go bang at any moment!

This watch also wears brilliantly with a short lug length and a 39mm case. It looks great on a wide array of straps and makes me confident to say that it could also stand up to anything you can throw at it.

If you haven't already seen Part 1 where I picked our favourite new watch releases of 2025 then check it out here!

But before you go, let me know what your favourite review we did this year was, and what you'd like to see us get our hands on in 2026!