I have a Hydros Pro as well and I love it. I'm a beginner diver, and my previous experience before purchasing a BCD was my pool sessions using a Scubapro jacket BCD and then seven dives (the first four of them being my cert dives) using a rental Cressi jacket style BCD. By that time I knew that I hated the jacket style. If felt very confining. I considered going the BP/W route but ultimately decided on the Hydros Pro and I'm very glad I did. The monprene harness snugs up nicely and grips well, hugging your body as you move. It isn't super lightweight, but I don't find it heavy either. It dries very fast, which is nice when traveling. It comes with a "Tec/Travel" waist belt that you can swap out if you don't want to use the integrated pockets, which would save you some weight and space if you pack it for travel and don't mind using a weight belt at your destination. I feel my trim is much better with a back-inflate. I suppose some people who are very comfortable with a jacket-style BCD might find the sensation of wearing a back-inflate odd at the surface, but it's really not a big deal. Just lean back a bit and it's fine. You might read some earlier user reviews that mention the straps breaking at the point where they connect to the backplate. That issue has been fixed. The initial run of about 1500 Hydros Pros simply had monprene straps connected by a pin to the rest of backplate. That's a high-stress area and it ended up breaking on a lot of them. It happened to my buddy's BCD. Since then, the new straps are reinforced with an inner core of nylon webbing. The nylon now takes the weight.@Efka76 thank you for your review.
I'd like to know more about your experience with the Scubapro Hydros Pro. I'm in a similar situation in that my wife and I are kinda new <50 dives and have one by one gotten various gear. Next item is the BCD and we're also considering the Hydros Pro. Main reason for we want to buy is that we plan on doing a longer vacation with many dives (dive trips), probably in the range of 60+ dives.
So how was your and your wife's experience with the Scubapro Hydros? I'm totally interested in your subjective thoughts as a similarly experienced diver, also assuming that during your training you mostly used rented jacket style BCDs.
The only odd thing I find with the Hydros is that the lower dump valve is on the left side and not the right side like I was initially used to. It's not a big deal at all, it just took some adjusting on my part.