Well in that price range every man and his dog is going to say SKX (personally I like the 013 better) and with good reason; it has legend status, is tough as nails and can pretty much work in any situation (bar maybe a black tie event) without looking too out of place. If I had to fault it though, I would say the movement is dated and rudimentary at best. The inability to hand wind personally bugs me, on a Seiko 5 I can live with it, but Seiko 5s are typically under $100. If you do want to mod though, there really is no better option.
Having said that, I want to chuck two alternatives into the mix: the orient ray/ Mako series and the citizen NY-040.
The orient doesn’t have the history/ prestige of the other two but the finishing and movement punch well above it’s weight in that price range. It’s also a bit more dressy (esp. in blue sunburst if that’s your thing?) but is also at home in jeans and T-shirt. Personally I think the citizen is the winner, I recently picked up one for just over $100 and I’m not exaggerating when I say it absolutely smokes the SKX in terms of what you get. It’s easily as tough as the seiko, has better finishing and the ability to hand wind (48 power reserve too). It wears small for a 42mm and if we’re talking about its relevance as a tool watch it was actually used by the Italian military as a dive watch and was tested to 500m 😱 So yeah, true use in the field, tough as nails And also the last automatic watch that citizen ever made before focusing on eco-drives.
All three have their advantages/ disadvantages as well as their fanboys and naysayers. For me it’s the citizen but there isn’t really a wrong answer here, all three can hold their own with the big boys and you’ll be hard pressed to find a watch snob that won’t at least acknowledge their history and relevance. The other factor I guess you need to consider is what you want to wear them on, a bracelt, rubber strap or nato etc. The orient bracelets cop a lot of flack, the citizen is hard to not find on rubber and the SKX jubilee is something you absolutely love or absolutely hate. All 3 are suer versatile though, guess it depends too on how much you want to accessorize. I put a strap code oyster on my orient and it looked liked a million bux, well actually it looked like $500 but it was still a good combo.