Help needed: Alladin Prime Vs Suunto Stinger

Guys,

I have gone through the forum and found nothing much on Uwatec's Alladin dive coms as Suunto seem to be the prefered ones.

I'm still considered a newbie and I'm making my capital investments in my gears at the moment. However, I am a little undecided between Prime and Stinger as I have both camps on my side raving about them. Hence, I would appreciate any reviews and comments from users of both coms;good and bad as I'd like to know which one is good for me to start off with.

I'd really appreciate all the help I can get.

WaterDevil:

Guys,

I have gone through the forum and found nothing much on Uwatec's Alladin dive coms as Suunto seem to be the prefered ones.

I'm still considered a newbie and I'm making my capital investments in my gears at the moment. However, I am a little undecided between Prime and Stinger as I have both camps on my side raving about them. Hence, I would appreciate any reviews and comments from users of both coms;good and bad as I'd like to know which one is good for me to start off with.

I'd really appreciate all the help I can get.

Click to expand...

Do a search for Aladin Prime..there are many threads on it. You had it spelled wrong. I cannot speak on it but have the stinger and love it! Great computer.

There is a fairly large difference in price between those two, aside from the fact that one watch sized and the other standard size. BTW, the Stinger is discontinued, replaced by the D6, and may not be available in all of its variations.

I use the Aladin Tec and I love it. I have used Aladin computers for many years now and have had no complaints about them. I recently bought the Tec and now use it on every dive. There is quite a difference in price between the Prime and Aladin Tec. For many recreational divers the standard Prime is more than sufficient for their needs, as there are only a few different features available on the Tec.

I find it very easy to use. It's two push buttons make for easy menu navigation, with either a quick single press or a held press for 1 second. The display is clear and easy to read at a glance, even when using the backlight in dark conditions (you can even change the the time for which the light stays on for).

It is very easy to set to use for nitrox diving with increases of 1% (with the Tec you can even change the maximum Partial Pressure of Oxygen setting to below 1.4 ata for an extra degree of safety, although I leave mine set to 1.4 ata). You can even alter the reset to air time for those times when you might forget to do so manually.

The Tec has microbubble supression which I find to be very useful when I make 4-5 dives a day in peak season. It has 5 levels of suppression, each one reducing no-stop time by differing ammounts and intoducing level stops at different depths depending on dive profile. I find the level 5 to be too conservative so I leave it set to level 1 for the main part of the year, increasing it to level 2 for when I am very busy. Note the microbubble suppression is not a feature on the standard Prime, just the Prime Tec.

I use an infrared interface with my PC to download my dives using the provided software and found this process to be easy and problem free (so far!).

All in all this is one of the best computers I have used and is an excellent addition to the Aladin range. I do not hesitate in recommending it to all my students.