By TEEEMPUS · Published
You know a Nautilus by its bezel: a rounded octagon, which watch people call a porthole, with two ears sticking out of the case at 3 and 9. Inside it sits a blue dial with horizontal ridges, baton markers and a date at 3, and the case runs straight into the bracelet. If you're picturing the steel 5711/1A, Patek no longer makes it. It came out in 2006 for the Nautilus's 30th anniversary, and at the start of 2021 Patek Philippe's Thierry Stern announced that 2021 would be its last year. It went out with an olive-green dial and a run of 170 in Tiffany blue.
The Nautilus this guide measures against is one Patek lists today, the 5811/1G-001. It has the blue dial, the ridges and the date at 3, in white gold, with Patek's self-winding calibre 26-330 S C inside. Patek's site lists it at $82,021 in the US. It will show you the price, but it won't sell you the watch online.
You can borrow most of the look for far less. We went through watches like the Patek Philippe Nautilus on sale in the US today and kept five, from $142 to $57,890. Three cost under $1,000, and the Mido costs $1,440. The fifth is Patek's own Aquanaut, at about two thirds of the Nautilus's price, for anyone who wants the real case shape with Patek's name on the dial. Each one comes with what it gets wrong. Prices are regular US list prices, not sale prices, checked on 9 November 2026. The photos are to scale, so if a watch looks smaller here, it is. Patek measures its cases from 10 to 4 o'clock rather than across the ears, and we've drawn both Pateks that way.
One of the five is marked as a homage, the watch world's word for a watch that follows a famous design on purpose, under its own name. If you came looking for a Patek Philippe Nautilus homage, it's the Pagani Design. Retailers often sell for less than the list prices here. Where we couldn't confirm that Amazon lists the exact watch, its Amazon button runs a search instead.
This is the watch every pick is measured against, the Nautilus 5811/1G-001:
Nothing below has all of it. Only the Pagani and the Aquanaut have the porthole bezel with ears. The Maen has flanks at 3 and 9 around a sharper octagon, and the Timex and the Mido have TV-shaped bezels, close to rounded squares, with no ears at all. The Pagani has no date, the Mido has a big date at 12, and the other three put a date at 3, as the Nautilus does. Every pick winds itself, and every one but the Aquanaut is at least 2 mm thicker than the Nautilus and rated deeper than its 30 metres.
| Watch | US list price | Case | Dial | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pagani Design PD-1728 (homage) | $142 | 40 mm, 13.4 mm thick, steel | Blue, horizontal ridges, no date | Automatic (Seagull ST16) |
| Timex Automatic E Line 38mm | $379 | 38 mm, 12.5 mm thick, steel | Blue, horizontal lines, date at 3 | Automatic (Miyota 8215) |
| Maen Manhattan 40 | $912 | 40 mm, 10.2 mm thick, steel | Blue, vertical stripes, date at 3 | Automatic (La Joux-Perret G100) |
| Mido Multifort TV Big Date | $1,440 | 40 mm, 11.5 mm thick, steel | Blue to black, big date at 12 | Automatic (Caliber 80) |
| Patek Philippe Aquanaut | $57,890 | 42.2 mm (10 to 4 o'clock), 8.25 mm thick, white gold | Blue, grid pattern, numerals, date at 3 | Automatic (26-330 S C) |
| Patek Philippe Nautilus 5811/1G, for comparison | $82,021 | 41 mm (10 to 4 o'clock), 8.2 mm thick, white gold | Blue, horizontal ridges, date at 3 | Automatic (26-330 S C) |
This is the Nautilus's outline for the least money. Pagani copies the whole shape: the porthole bezel with ears at 3 and 9, a dark-blue gradient dial with horizontal ridges, applied batons with lume, and a steel bracelet with polished centre links. The case is 40 mm of 316L steel, the crystal is sapphire with an anti-reflective coating, and inside is a Seagull ST16 automatic with 40 hours of power reserve. It's water resistant to 10 bar, about 100 metres. Order the variant Pagani calls Blue.
What you give up starts with the date. There isn't one, where the Nautilus has one at 3. The dial adds a dotted minute track and Pagani's logo, and at 13.4 mm the case is 5.2 mm thicker than the Nautilus's. Pagani doesn't publish the lug-to-lug length. It lists at $142, less than a hundredth of the Nautilus's price, and on 9 November 2026 Pagani's shop had it at $120 in what it called an 11.11 sale.
This is our pick for value: it's the cheapest watch here that isn't a homage, and its dial gets the Nautilus's main details right. The blue dial has horizontal lines, which Timex calls a plank texture, applied batons and a date at 3, inside a rounded-square bezel on a brushed and polished steel case. It runs on a Miyota 8215 automatic with about 42 hours of power reserve, and the seconds hand stops when you pull the crown, so you can set the time to the second. Timex rates it at 20 seconds slow to 40 fast a day. The case is 38 mm across, 12.5 mm thick and 45.5 mm from lug to lug, on a brushed steel bracelet with a butterfly clasp.
What you give up is the Nautilus's outline. There are no ears at 3 and 9, the TV-shaped case is more angular, and the bracelet is a different design. The crystal is mineral rather than sapphire, it's water resistant to 50 metres, and at 38 mm it's the smallest watch here. It costs $379, less than a hundredth of the Nautilus's price.
Pick the Maen if a thin case and a Swiss movement matter more to you than a rounded bezel. At 10.2 mm it's the thinnest watch here after the Aquanaut, and inside is a Swiss-made La Joux-Perret G100 automatic with about 68 hours of power reserve. The dial, which Maen calls Midnight Blue, has applied polished batons and a date at 3, and the steel case has flanks at 3 and 9 that stand in for the Nautilus's ears. The bracelet is integrated, held to the case by four screws, and tapers from 22 to 18 mm to a butterfly clasp. The case is 40 mm across and 49.3 mm from lug to lug, under a sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating, and it's water resistant to 10 ATM, or 100 metres.
What you give up is the porthole. Maen's bezel is a sharp octagon, stretched upright, where the Nautilus's is rounded, and the dial's stripes, a Côtes de Genève pattern, run up and down instead of across. It costs $912, a ninetieth of the Nautilus's price. Maen is a Dutch brand, and its shop works out the dollar price from euros, so it can move with the exchange rate.
Of the four steel watches here, the Mido has the most complete spec sheet. Its Caliber 80 automatic, with a Nivachron balance spring, runs for up to 80 hours, the longest power reserve here. It has a screw-down crown, a sapphire crystal that's anti-reflective on both sides, a see-through case back and 100 metres of water resistance. The look is close too: a brushed cushion-shaped bezel, a blue-to-black gradient dial, and a bracelet with polished centre links, as the Nautilus has. The steel case is 40 mm wide, 39.2 mm from top to bottom and, Mido says, 11.5 mm thick on average, and the bracelet's butterfly clasp has push-buttons.
What you give up is the Nautilus's dial layout and its ears. The date is a big date at 12 rather than a small one at 3, round dot markers sit among the batons, and the case has no ears. Mido's photo shows fine horizontal lines across the dial, but its own description only calls the dial blue. It costs $1,440, about a fifty-fifth of the Nautilus's price.
If what you want is the Nautilus's case with Patek's name on the dial, this is the cheaper way in, though cheaper is relative. The Aquanaut has the same rounded-octagon bezel and the same ears, and inside is the same calibre 26-330 S C, with 35 to 45 hours of power reserve. The white-gold case is 42.2 mm, measured from 10 to 4 o'clock like the Nautilus's, and 8.25 mm thick. The sunburst blue dial darkens to black at the rim and has a date at 3, and the case is water resistant to 30 metres with a screw-down crown, like the Nautilus.
What you give up is the dial's pattern and the bracelet. Patek embosses the Aquanaut's dial with a grid instead of horizontal ridges, uses applied white-gold numerals instead of batons, and fits an integrated midnight-blue composite strap instead of a bracelet. The case is 1.2 mm larger. Patek's only current steel Aquanaut with time and date, the 5167A-001, has a black dial, so the blue one here is white gold. It costs $57,890, about two thirds of the Nautilus's price, and Patek doesn't sell this one online either.
