Oceanic Atom Owners step in...

How many of you wear yours as a regular recreational watch as well? How does it work as a regular watch?

Is the display too small when you dive? Is all the important information easily accessible. The buttons are pretty small and I'm concerned that with gloves it'll be hard to switch screens to get all of the information that's important.

Thanks,
Brian

I don't wear it as a watch, just use it as a DC (and wish that it could be turned off to save battery life)

As for the display/buttons too small under water, no problems there. Plenty large to see and to operate. The protective cover adds to the size of the buttons making them easier to use.

You do have to press the buttons to scroll through the different screens for all the data (ie: tank pressure is on page 2, and PO2 is on page 3), but that is very easy as well.

Tamas:

I don't wear it as a watch, just use it as a DC (and wish that it could be turned off to save battery life)

As for the display/buttons too small under water, no problems there. Plenty large to see and to operate. The protective cover adds to the size of the buttons making them easier to use.

You do have to press the buttons to scroll through the different screens for all the data (ie: tank pressure is on page 2, and PO2 is on page 3), but that is very easy as well.

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What's the protective cover you speak of?

BrianV:

What's the protective cover you speak of?

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Kind of hard to see, but you can in this pic (both on the DC itself and on the image on the box):

I see, so that's just for extra protection like it you hit rocks or something it won't scratch the lens?

Thanks

i dive in the tropics and when i bought the atom, i was introduced to the 'protective lens' as "use this for cold water diving when you have gloves".

its not too hard to press.

So Tamas...

On a scale of one to ten... how do you rate it?

BrianV:

I see, so that's just for extra protection like it you hit rocks or something it won't scratch the lens?

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With the later "models" (i.e. firmware upgrades), Oceanic will also include a piece of round clear plastic film for you to put over the screen of the Atom itself. What happened with the early release Atoms was that sand or grit sometimes gets trapped between the screen guard and the screen and would scratch it.

I have trifocals dry and contacts wet with no problems seeing.
Don’t use as a watch except, well it is a watch and I’m wearing it on way to etc.
dive. It just is a watch face until you get it wet at 4’ I think if set to go auto. Has a lot of customization BTW. One button to set it to be diving.
No problem with buttons. Did have to get the hang of it, but most of that was understanding the logic – I got it at dive 4 or something. Doesn’t bother me to access tank pressure. It does make it a bit slower to respond to tank pressure requests – I choose to confirm vs relay what I think it is. I'm in the tropics so gloves are the rubbery garden kind and not been a problem.
It’s scratched, lava is brutal. Looks worse dry, never notice it wet.
I think the site is www.oceanicworldwide.com and it has a pretty good demo thingy.
Can’t say how easy/hard in comparison to anything really – 1st computer. I will say with all the scratches, I couldn’t read the rental/class SPG to save my life and I didn’t like dorking around with it. I rented another computer also at some point and thought it was a pain too. Probably being such a geek, looking at a ‘watch’ was just more natural.

BrianV:

How many of you wear yours as a regular recreational watch as well? How does it work as a regular watch?

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I wore mine. It worked fine as a regular watch. The Atom is very easy to use above and below water. I had some reliability/battery drain issue with my Atoms (I owned three altogether, two r2Cs and one r2F, and occasionally borrow another one, an r2d, from a friend) and now use a different computer which suits my diving needs better.

BrianV:

Is the display too small when you dive?

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No, it's quite a good size.

BrianV:

Is all the important information easily accessible. The buttons are pretty small and I'm concerned that with gloves it'll be hard to switch screens to get all of the information that's important.

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Yes, all important information are easily accessible. As Tamas mentioned, the screen guard helps to make the buttons bigger so you will not have too much trouble pressing them underwater.