I've got three solar watches, so in theory, I shouldn't have to change the battery for the rest of my life.
None of them are on the very expensive side. I paid for about $100, $60, and $40 (didn't buy them all at once). The $100 is the most dressy and I wear when I attend weddings, etc. But the band and watch is a little heavy so I don't wear it much. The $60 is a digital, mutli-functional, chrono one. One nice feature of this is that it automatically syncs the time with one of those atomic clocks in Colorado so I refer to this the exact correct time. Also this one has a 24 hour stopwatch. The $40 one has both "hands -- big hand, little hand) and a small lcd display for day, date, year, stopwatch, dual time. I almost decided to donate this away as at first the contrast was hard to read and a shortcoming is that stopwatch only goes for an hour. But now (though the stopwatch is still to short), I find that of the three, I use this watch the most. This one is the most comfortable on my wrist and my mind pretty much adjusted to the lack of contrast.
With all that said, I pretty much don't use my digital watches as alarm clocks as I like having my cell phone as the alarm clock.
I know, seems trivial, but for me it's a lot more convenient to just flick my wrist to see the date/time than to reach for the phone in my holster.