Revo has quite a bit of proprietary parts and is costly when it comes to manufacturer recommended service from my understanding.
I own my second rEvo now. Nothing wrong with the first one, other than it was a Mini and I found a good deal on a Micro. Smaller and lighter was worth the hassle to buy the new one, sell the old one, etc..
My Mini was built in 2009. My Micro was built in 2012. I had the Mini serviced a couple of months before I sold it. I got the Micro serviced before I ever dived it. Both were overdue. Both were serviced by Richard Morton, of Dive-Tronix. He is the US-based Shearwater service tech and he is also a rEvo factory-authorized service tech. Service on both my units was VERY inexpensive. And very quick. Both units turned around in less than a week from when he received them. I think the bill for the Mini service was about $500, and that included having him do some stuff that it technically did not have to have. The Micro service was more, but that was because I had some upgrades done.
I think that ability to get service done in the US, and the cost, used to be a strike against rEvo, but I don't think it is, anymore. (Richard, at Dive-Tronix, is just awesome) And it certainly should not be a factor for a Belgium-based owner.
I don't have any experience with any other units but rEvo (other than a try-dive on a Dive Rite O2ptima, which I did not like at all). But, there are a few things about the rEvo that I can say that I like about it:
- the dual scrubber design makes it EXTREMELY unlikely to ever have issues with channeling or CO2 bypass.
- the rMS system is great for allowing me to monitor my sorb and not waste it by dumping sorb that still has a lot of life left. rMS gets knocked for being unreliable - as in, system components breaking - not that it gives erroneous readings. But, from what I can tell, the rMS temp probes have been improved in their design over the years and the parts they've had for the last few years seem to be reliable. I don't think that criticism is necessarily valid anymore.
- it is very low profile
- I get good, flat trim without any weight on the unit. That was true with the Mini and a Don Six stand on it, and it is true with the Micro with a rEvo factory stand on it, as well. Also, I don't have to mount the cylinders way up high, to get good trim, like I see users of at least one other brand doing.
- the rEvo Micro, in particular, is very nice for travel. Compact and light, to fit in a checked bag that is under 50#(23kg).
- the CMF means that if my solenoid were to go out, it gives me much more time to notice my ppO2 dropping, versus a unit that is purely electronic. This actually happened to me 45 minutes into a dive on the Jodrey a bit over a week ago. I noticed when the ppO2 had dropped to about 1.15 (from a SP of 1.3), so I would have been fine even without the CMF, in that particular case. But, it is comforting to me to know that it does give me extra safety margin.
- I run 5 sensors. A buddy who used to dive a JJ and now dives an X used to tease me about having so many sensors. "Loads of people are doing very deep, technical wreck dives with only 3 sensors. You don't need more than 3. 5 is just silly." Then he took his X to Bikini and shortly after getting there, one of his sensor connectors crapped out (due to corrosion) and couldn't be fixed with the parts and tools on hand. He had to choose between diving with only 2 sensors or diving OC for the bulk of his time at Bikini. He has not teased me about 5 sensors since...
- I have a Nomad XT wing and a Hogarthian harness on mine. It is very clean and streamlined. When I dived the Jodrey, up in the Saint Lawrence, last week, the boat captain even commented (unsolicited) that my rig was the "cleanest" CCR rig he'd ever seen.
- the process for calibration is done with the unit in ready-to-dive condition. I like that. I only found recently that some other units have all this other stuff that you do to them, with adapter fittings or whatever, for when you calibrate the controller/monitor. It's just a gut feeling, but my gut tells me that putting it together like I'm going to dive it and doing the checks and calibration in that condition just seems better.
- the Mini has bigger counter lungs. Much larger than I needed. The Micro's are smaller. It turns out that they are just the right size for me. But, if it had turned out that the CLs in the Micro were too small for me, rEvo has a very inexpensive kit of spacers that you can install in the case (user-installable) that make the case a little thicker, allowing the CLs to expand more, resulting in the same CL volume as what the Mini has.
Anyway, the rEvo has things that people will legitimately knock. I'm not saying it is perfect or the best. But, those are the things that I particularly like about it. The only think I don't especially like about it is that I do wish there was a way to get water out of it during a dive. The design makes it less likely than most (I think) to get water in. But, if you do, then you're not getting it out again until you get out of the water.
