Purchase decision driving me batty. Please help.

[Blackbay]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

diversteve: Thank you! If I get my hands on a Petrel <$450, I'll be wearing it on a chain around my neck and hissing at people to leave my precious alone :daydreaming:

Well this might be a little long...

but very helpful. The Quantum sounds interesting, but I admit after a little reading, stories about unreliability as recently as 2013 are making me nervous. I'll speak with the LDS and see if they've had any issues with the Quantum X.

 

[GCullen94]

Really I never heard about the unreliability? The basic unit is made by a company in Japan and was sold by zeagle, dive rite, apex and cressi to name a few. The zeagle version is the N2ition



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[Subcooled]

Suunto Vyper is a good and affordable entry level one-gas wrist mounted diving computer. It is metric (mine is, at least). It has air and nitrox modes and a gauge mode that is great for freediving. If you ever get into trimix diving, then you can use the Vyper as a gauge and dive a pregenerated plan (or that Shearwater). Max operating depth 80m says the webpage.

Link: http://www.suunto.com/Products/dive-computers-and-instruments/Suunto-Vyper/Suunto-Vyper/

One possible online shop: deepstop.de
http://www.deepstop.de/computers-suunto-divecomputers-c-87_47_159.html

I have found the Vyper to be reliable and usable even in cold murky waters (but harder to read than those lovely but expensive offerings from Xdeep, Heinrichsweikamp or Shearwater...). Vyper has some usefull audible alarms (ascent speed warning,ppO2 warning, optional maxdepth, optional divetime) but the screen light is useless in my opinion. It is on for a short time at a time, not permanently, and it is hard to enable with dry gloves - especially when using a screen protector. I tend to look at my Vyper using my dive light if in darkness (i.e. on every single dive). The screen protector may reflect a bit so there may be some slightly annoying "aiming" involved to read the dive time in the lower corner, but I've managed to do 60 mine dives using it so it can't be completely useless The Vyper is lovely in good light.

Vyper also has a nice removable plastic screen protector. I have scratched and ruined and replaced a bunch of those already. Love them. (I don't keep my gear in padded boxes)

There exists a bungee mount for Suunto. I have this, and it is good: https://www.deepseasupply.com/index.php?product=48 (you need hot water and some time to move the Vyper from one mount to another)

Hard to tell how the Suunto algorithm compares to Mares. Vyper has three conservatism settings P0 (least conservative), P1 and P2 (most conservative). Suunto also has three altitude settings in case you would dive in mountain lakes

Vyper battery change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuMPGQSp3rc

If you choose Suunto, make sure that the packaging also contains the custom USB-cable needed to transfer the logs to your computer. You can use the Suunto Dive Manager 4 software (free; social network Movescount integrated) or Diving Log 5 ($only; nice statistics) or Subsurface (free; nice graph; multiplatform) - whichever you prefer (I have all three)

I would classify the Vyper as a: boring tool

WARNING: I do not do repetitive dives. One dive a day, rarely two.
Another thread worth reading: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/computers-gauges-watches-analyzers/490130-petrel-v-vyper.html

 

[Blackbay]

This is great, Subcooled. Thank you for taking the time to add so much detail. I wasn't aware you could change the P0-P2 setting. So one more in the running

Really I never heard about the unreliability? The basic unit is made by a company in Japan and was sold by zeagle, dive rite, apex and cressi to name a few. The zeagle version is the N2ition

There was a bad batch that made it to Dive Rite, Apeks and Tusa around 2005. This thread had quite a few users who went through multiple versions since Apeks & DR's policy was just to replace any malfunctioning units at the time. Screen fading or outright turning off, locking out with buttons failing, etc. One took apart his computer and saw a small amount of water had entered the housing and the contacts on the circuit board operating the switch had eroded away. So for a while, it was very hit and miss; if you got a good one, there were no problems at all. Then I read some other forums posted similar incidents more recently because the sensors stopped working, but I'm probably just being paranoid.

 

[Subcooled]

What is the dive trip of a lifetime like? Liveaboard? How many dives per day? How many days? What depth?

 

[Blackbay]

Raja Ampat and Lembeh for 2.5 weeks, shore-based. I'm not really sure why the idea of a liveaboard has never appealed to me. About 3 dives a day, most long and shallow in Lembeh. The Raja Ampat sites vary but average out at about 15m/50ft and I don't see many much deeper than 25m.