Advice to buy a diving computer for a beginner

[outofofficebrb]

My advice would be go for a new shearwater. That will be the last computer you will ever need.

True, but the OP said in their first post they did not want to spend big money on something right now and what they were originally looking at is a fraction of what a Shearwater would cost. Additionally, OP updated and said that they already bought the Vyper for a great price. The budget aspect and subsequent purchase allowed the OP to grab something affordable to them right now so they can jump in the water right away.

 

[boulderjohn]

What it is not that obvious is (don't laugh) to make sure you are not in Nitrox mode while you are making a non-nitrox dive and to understand clearly when you go out of curve while in water and decompression time when you go out.

Keep it in nitrox mode the whole time and just change the O2 percentage.

The rest (at least this is my impression) is so obvious that you understand it without reading the manual

I once did a series of instructional dives with a group of people doing different classes. I would dive with different ones for different purposes, and when they weren't part of the instructional dive being done, the others would either dive on their own or sit out. On one dive, some of the others surfaced at the same time my class did, and one of them talked about the weird thing his Suunto Vyper was doing--it was counting up minutes for some reason. I immediately recognized that he had gone into deco, and the computer was telling him how long his decompression stop needed to be. He had no idea what number it had reached, and now it just said "Er." . We went back down and did a 20 minute safety stop. When we got to the surface, I put him on oxygen for a while, even though he had no symptoms.

There are some things that are not intuitive, and it is good to know them.

 

[Sbiriguda]

I will give you again a feedback on the Suunto Vyper. I had to chance to test it in real dives in Liguria, not in the swimming pool
Actually I found it quite easy to read. There is a symbol of a plane, that activates to warn you not to fly. There is a sort of countdown in minutes, in the very center of the screen, and it is the decompression time. Very easy to read if you already expect to read it there
I would like to try also the simulation features Hatul spoke about in the posts above

The computer is quite conservative. For me it's not a problem, on the contrary, I don't like to take risks apart from the fact I am a beginner and I feel it is better for me to stay on the conservative side.
Perhaps for others who are more advanced and risk oriented this could be an issue

 

[Neilwood]

Keep it in nitrox mode the whole time and just change the O2 percentage.

I once did a series of instructional dives with a group of people doing different classes. I would dive with different ones for different purposes, and when they weren't part of the instructional dive being done, the others would either dive on their own or sit out. On one dive, some of the others surfaced at the same time my class did, and one of them talked about the weird thing his Suunto Vyper was doing--it was counting up minutes for some reason. I immediately recognized that he had gone into deco, and the computer was telling him how long his decompression stop needed to be. He had no idea what number it had reached, and now it just said "Er." . We went back down and did a 20 minute safety stop. When we got to the surface, I put him on oxygen for a while, even though he had no symptoms.

There are some things that are not intuitive, and it is good to know them.

This is one of those things that is worth reading the manual and rereading the manual on - how to spot if you are in deco and what it shows. A lot of recreational computers are not great at visually identifying deco with often a small DECO being the only hint - doesn't help with the black on grey with a lot of computers either. The computer simply showing ER doesn't help either as you have no idea how much deco has been skipped.

 

[Centrals]

RGBM has interesting safety factors in its algorithm. Read about it so you won't be penalize for "violating" them.
No reverse profile, fast ascend, short surface interval etc etc.
Don't blame the computer if it puts you into deco.