Buying a Scuba Diving Computer? What to Ask When You Buy a Dive Computer

We are giving you a little information here to leadfor planning your dive profile. The electronic compass
you towards the right questions to ask to help youis also nice for when I am navigating at night in a
when buying a scuba diving computer, so that thestrange town, and I don't speak the language like
computer fits your needs. We would recommendSaigon or Bangkok, so for me while the cost was
that you talk to your diving instructor about whathigh, I get lots of good use out of it. A neat added
kind of diving that you would like to do, and thenbenefit is that it marks you as a diver so you get to
they can help you by asking questions to see wheremeet other divers because of your dive watch.
your future in diving will take you, and what yourIf you are a weekend diver having your own
dive gear needs will be .computer is nice because you are familiar with it and
For myself I have 1000 dives and I don't do techyou know how to use it. Diving can be sometimes
wreck diving. I do travel a bit and I don't always takestressful and not knowing the computer intimately
all of my dive gear with me. I am also a PADI andcan add additional stress to your dive, just like diving
SSI instructor, so on most dives, I have divers that Iany other new equipment, except that computers
am leading or teaching courses to, so I like to havetend to take a bit more to learn on the front end. I
my dive gear setup quickly, to give me more time tomyself got into some trouble when my computer
supervise my divers. When I had a strap onbatteries ran out and I needed to rent a computer,
computer, I was forever forgetting the darn thing,and didn't understand all the messages that the
because I was so use to my Oceanic computer thatcomputer gave me, resulting in me going into
was on my gauge package. I never forgot mydecompression diving and not knowing it! Needless to
computer but it was not a good setup if I wanted tosay going into deco and not knowing it could have
travel light, with just my mask and computer. When Ibeen very dangerous.
became an instructor, I decided to upgrade again toI recommend to most weekend divers that they
a Suunto Stinger. The deal is this, as you go along; iflook at the Suunto Gecko with its large easy to read
you are seriously in to diving, you will upgrade yourface or if you like a watch look at the Suunto
dive gear just like I have, so don't feel pressured toMosquito another one with a bit more aesthetic
buy the latest and greatest right from the start. Ifappeal would be the Mares Nemo. All 3 of these are
you take care of your scuba equipment it usually willgod value for the money and they hold up well
retain allot of resale or trade value.If you do a lot of diving and you are thinking of
Most times if you rent scuba gear they don't havegoing down the advanced tech wreck diving side
compasses so I upgraded again when the Suunto D9talking to a tech wreck instructor will have you ask
came out, which added a compass and air integration.questions like will I be doing multi gas? Am I an
I also like it because like the Stinger, I don't have toaggressive diver? Am I fit? If you are just starting
bring my "regs" out to give dive log details, when itdown that path you might look at a Suunto Viper or
comes time to fill in the logs. Even better the D9 hassome of the Uawtec line which allow some deco
a USB interface and I just click a button and it tellsdiving. Some computers will violate you and turn into
me all sorts of cool stuff, like how much air per min Igauges, not good as it could end your computers use
am breathing, which if you get into cave diving orfor 24-48-72 hours. Your best bet is to talk to the
cavern diving, or just want to plan some deep dives,tech wreck people before buying dive computers for
gives you a good idea of how much air you are usingthe more advanced diving.