Recommend me my first dive computer

[Arthur Gerla]

Only if you do ascents in pitch black darkness. In all other circumstances you can use your torch. Most computers have a phosphorescent display anyway.

[drunkdiver]

Gekko. No other choice really.

1. Its very cheap
2. Its Suunto, so tried and tested more than the others
3. Its Suunto and chances are most people you dive with will have suuntos so you will have same profile.
3. Its easy to use
4. It does nitrox. It will cover all the recreational diving you a likely to. No good for technical but dont worry about this now as if this is your first computer that is a long way off, if ever + you will need two computers then anyway.

It doesent have a backlight but ive never really used mine anyway. They a a pain to use, and if its that dark you will have a torch.

D4 will be equally good or better, but cost quite a bit more.

[Rydive]

Hey Gunner, not to disagree with drunkdiver but I personally have found a back-light to be useful for night dives. If you use a torch, the reflection of the light off the computer can dazzle you a bit and take away your night vision. It's a minor point, especially if you don't do any night diving or don't like the idea, but it's something to bare in mind. You can pick up vypers SH for between £100-120. Otherwise, as said above, the Gekko will do all you need. HTH

[robertsT]

I would recomend the Apeks Quantum. Is simple to use and allows for gas switiching if you decide to go down that route. You can pick one up for less than £200 so also great value. When they first came out there was alot of problems with them which gave them a bad reputation but the new ones are fine

[tom]

my suggestion would be to get something that has a gauge mode - that way you're future-proofed if your diving takes off in certain directions.

gekko does not have a gauge mode.

[robertsT]

Originally Posted by tom

my suggestion would be to get something that has a gauge mode - that way you're future-proofed if your diving takes off in certain directions.

gekko does not have a gauge mode.

Quantum does!

[hammerheads]

Go with Suunto i have the Mosquito, D9 and the Vytec they are superb computers with a good resale value.

I would avoid Cressi, Oceanic or Mares supermarket computers in my opinion especially Cressi which is a supermarket brand on the continent.

[David D]

Originally Posted by gunner

or should I be looking at anything else?

You can buy a Suunto, or you can buy a computer that isn't conservative rubbish.

I recently spent a week diving in the Red Sea with a guy who used a Suunto, one of the wristwatch types, Stinger I think, and spent the whole week doing anything up to 20 minutes extra stops on every dive. By the end of the week I could have happily taken a hammer to the piece of crap.

If you're only going to do short bottom times on nothing more than 30ish meters, a Suunto won't penalise you too much. As you advance your diving, you'll end up doing longer and longer stops. And then you'll move on to really long stops.

For the sake of comparison only, my computers were VR3 and Aladdin Pro Ultra, both of which generally cleared within a minute or two of each other.

You haven't indicated what diving you're doing, so it's difficult to say what might be a better choice, but I've read good things about the Apeks Quantum if you don't want to lay out wads of cash.

[Martin Owen]

Originally Posted by hammerheads

Go with Suunto i have the Mosquito, D9 and the Vytec they are superb computers with a good resale value.

I would avoid Cressi,

I use the Cressi Archimede 2 (it's the same computer as the Apeks Quantum) which IMO is a great bit of kit, the only issue i have had with it was when it needed a new (user replaceable) battery, i replaced it with an Energizer, then a Panasonic (as supplied from factory) but it kept on crashing. After speaking to Cressi, they recommended using a Varta battery as they have the highest milliamp's. This i did and it has performed faultlessly.

I also use a Suunto D6 as a back up, which can take a couple of minutes longer to clear the stops.

[Polyphemus]

The stinger comes set with +2 conservative mode. the first day i got mine i did a 35m dive, and it locked up for two days. once i turned off the conservative mode it worked great, tried it with 4 30m dives a day for week and all good.

So look in the book and turn it off. jobs a good un.