I agree with Merxlin, but sometimes scrutinizing the experience of others can help too. So I'll tell you about my experience. My first fins were Oceanic split fins. I loved them. I'm an older diver, in generally OK physical shape, but overweight. I am emphatically not a strong swimmer. When I did my divemaster class, I triple lapped the other candidates who were all at least twenty years younger than me on the 800-yard fins-mask-snorkel swim. I was using my splits, they were using paddle fins.
Then I got into doubles, and found that I was having trouble making headway against any kind of current with my splits. Furthermore, I couldn't do the fancier kicks I was trying to learn. One day, I lost a fin over the side of a San Diego dive boat. So I replaced the splits with Jet fins. Stiff as a board, heavy, and absolutely the best thing in the world for moving a lot of gear through active water.
For the type of diving I do now, I would never go back to the splits. On the other hand, if in some version of Hell I had to do another timed 800-yard swim without 100+ pounds of gear, I'd grab the splits without a second thought.
So, as others have said, it really depends on what type of diving you will be doing. (Also to some degree on your leg strength; people I've talked to who don't like the Jets say that they find them too tiring.)
Hope this helps.
Then I got into doubles, and found that I was having trouble making headway against any kind of current with my splits. Furthermore, I couldn't do the fancier kicks I was trying to learn. One day, I lost a fin over the side of a San Diego dive boat. So I replaced the splits with Jet fins. Stiff as a board, heavy, and absolutely the best thing in the world for moving a lot of gear through active water.
For the type of diving I do now, I would never go back to the splits. On the other hand, if in some version of Hell I had to do another timed 800-yard swim without 100+ pounds of gear, I'd grab the splits without a second thought.
So, as others have said, it really depends on what type of diving you will be doing. (Also to some degree on your leg strength; people I've talked to who don't like the Jets say that they find them too tiring.)
Hope this helps.
Try them. If you like them, buy em and use em. If not, buy blades. Or join the ranks of us who have both. They work and feel differently for everyone that uses them, and all the debate is just personal opinion. The only one that counts is yours.
I forgot option 2- read and argue about them ad naseum here on Scubaboard, then go to the above.