I'm not sure I fully understand your question. If you're weighing up a computer vs gauges does that mean you will be diving with one or the other? Or is it just that you will be diving with your own gauges or your own computer and rental gauges?
I would be very uncomfortable without gauges. Even if the computer is air integrated I would still feel much safer if I have a SPG where I can see how much air I have left. If I misunderstood, disregard this.
Apart from that I'd like to make a comment on computers in general. I may be wrong, but having done a fair amount of homework before I bought mine, I came to this conclusion.
It seems to me that, unless you buy a Trimix computer (like the
VR3 or
Suunto HelO2), the features that separate dive computers are not really related to the level of your diving. In other words, the things that make one computer more expensive than another are stuff like built in electronic compasses, wireless air integration, bottom time graphs and what have you but not really much that you would specifically start needing once you become more advanced.
Even the most basic computers these days can be set to Nitrox mode, that's perhaps the one featuer that I would think is important if you plan on going "advanced" with the computer. Other than that, the only feature that I'm aware of which some computers have and others don't is the ability to switch between gasses. This switching is still only between air and different mixes of Nitrox, no fancy gasses. I'm still not sure how common that type of diving is, I mean now the type where you dive on different gasses
but not Trimix. I guess there's a narrow niche for divers doing deco on enriched air but maybe someone more experienced than me can comment on how narrow/wide that niche really is.
Anyways, I'm rambling all of this in response to
My question is buy analog gauges and wait to buy a better computer down the road when I want to get more advanced with my diving or buy a cheaper computer now and upgrade later??
Basically what I wanted to say is that if you buy a computer now, even a basic one, chances are it will be sufficient until you are pretty advanced. And by the time your diving is so advanced that it's not sufficient anymore, you'd be needing a computer that would be much more expensive and way overkill for the type of diving you'll be doing now and for some years to follow - not the type of computer you'd be likely to justify buying until then anyway.
