help please, wrist computer what to buy

[DarinJ]

+1 for the Zoop. My son and I both find them easy to use and a good fit for our shallow recreational diving.


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[Water Boy76]

Hollis DG02

 

[alewar]

Buy one with OLED display...

 

[tkaelin]

Zoop can't be beat for easy use and price. We have two, the Zoop and the prior version the Gekko. The Gekko is over 5 years old, over 250 dives and still the original battery showing 5 bars, full power. We use these for recreational diving and everyone in the family can easily understand and use the computers.

 

[Scubanoobi]

For your price point I would look at the zoop. The whole "I can wear it as a regular watch too" idea got old fast, I now have a small watch type and a larger wrist mount suunto and I don't typically wear either of them when I'm not diving.

The battery issues with the geo/manta are likely due to cheap batteries. I have a geo, I get 2 years out of a Sony and about 1 month out of a no-name.

Pick the brand/algorithm you're comfortable with then pick one of their computers in your price range.

 

[DukeAMO]

DH has a Suunto Zoop, and I have a Mares Puck. They work just fine for us, 40ish dives in, and the batteries are still OK after 2 years. We like the wrist straps. I'm not a fan of the console mounted computers; they're too hard to watch. The Zoop looks nicer, but the Puck logs the water temperature, which is useful. (If you put your wetsuit configuration, water temperature (and were you warm or cold), and amount of lead (and were you heavy, light, or OK) in your log book, you can get your bouyancy perfected over time.) They both took a few dives of practice, and we had to read the manuals a couple of times. I'd say the overall usability is about the same.

 

[tx_headcase]

thanks al, l im new to diving and was not expecting feedback on this again thanks for all your feedback now im off to my dive shop to look and do some research

 

[EmJay]

There have been a lot of threads regarding entry level dive computers, which you can look at as well.

I am pretty new to diving and I bought the Zoop. As I said in a previous post, there are only 2 issues which bug me:

1. No deep stop functionality;
2. Phosphorescent display does not last long enough, no matter the amount of time I "charge" it with my torch. It's also not bright enough for my liking. Have to keep recharging it it whilst diving. This may not be a concern, but night dives can be a little nerve wrecking for a new diver so a dim dive computer just adds annoyance. If you are task loaded whilst doing a night dive, I can see this becoming a problem.

I don't plan on doing any major diving that will require a dive computer with additional functionality, so I think my Zoop and I will enjoy many hours underwater.

DH has a Suunto Zoop, and I have a Mares Puck. They work just fine for us, 40ish dives in, and the batteries are still OK after 2 years. We like the wrist straps. I'm not a fan of the console mounted computers; they're too hard to watch. The Zoop looks nicer, but the Puck logs the water temperature, which is useful. (If you put your wetsuit configuration, water temperature (and were you warm or cold), and amount of lead (and were you heavy, light, or OK) in your log book, you can get your bouyancy perfected over time.) They both took a few dives of practice, and we had to read the manuals a couple of times. I'd say the overall usability is about the same.

Don't you do this in a log book anyway? I love detailing all my dives such as weight, to water temp, marine life, stupid things I did or areas where I want to improve. It's like a dive journal and is a bit of a ritual after completing a dive. I then transfer the info to an Excel log book after a bunch of dives so I can track SAC rates and easily add up totals etc. I think the Zoop does track water temp, you just need the PC cable to extract this information. It's a bit pricey for what it is, so I have opted to buy other gear first.

 

[Ricky B]

The Zoop looks nicer, but the Puck logs the water temperature, which is useful.

The Zoop logs the water temp too.