Are Suunto dive computers so conservative, they're useless?

[diverbrian]

All that I know is that in NC last week week my VyTec went into Gauge mode (because I bent it) on the second day vs. my VR3 and the borrowed Cocharan that I was using which had not one problem in the world with my dive profiles. I was using the VR3 for my profile and my buddy was using decompression software and a bottom timer. We added a minute or two to our 15 ft. stop and still bent my VyTec.

We also had a diver down at 15 ft. for another ten minutes to prevent bending her Cobra.

I do agree with the reliability comments, but I have had a couple of Mosquitos and a VyTec fail on me. I sold my Cobra, but it never gave me any issues.

 

[rockjock3]

Just back from Grand Cayman where I dove with D9 and Mosquito. Diving with both on nitrox at 32% I seemed to dive as deep as anyone (ata 1.5) with longer profiles than others on the boat using all sorts of dive computers. Almost always the first off and last on the boat and came up only because the DMs made me.

yep, those damn suuntos aren't worth diving with.

I would agree with you. I dive a Mosquito as well and either on air or nitrox I am usually the first off the boat and the last one back on and that is without pushing the watches limits.

 

[PenguinAdLitem]

LDS rents Geckos, so I've strapped those on several times. Now I dive an Oceanic Veo 250. I hoover, so gas is usually the limiting factor on the first dive of the day, but the Oceanic seems to give me more NDL time on repetitive dives, and I like the interface. As someone else has said, I'd rather dive a liberal computer conservatively than try to dive a conservative computer to the edge.

I dove a few weeks ago with three guys, all wearing D9s. At 130', they had low single digit NDL time remaining when I moved to 9 minutes. We would have had to go up anyway because one guy was low on air (not me, for once!), but it was a revelation.

Not that I would toss a D9 out of my kit for eating crackers, but I refuse to pay more for something that will tell me to come up earlier when common sense is free. Well, cheap.