Oceanic Geo (battery life)

I plan to buy Oceanic Geo but I heard the battery life of it is very short.

Although it claims its battery is good for 300 dives on its website, some divers said its battery is only good for 50-60 dives. Is it true?

Any Ocean Geo users to comment on this issue?

Thanks.

I went through 3 Geos from November of last year through May or June of this year. I finally switched to an Atom, had that replaced then went to a VT3 in late September. The VT3 is the only one that has lasted more than 3 months or so. The VT3 has 169 dives on it.

While I like the Geo when it works unless Oceanic has revamped it which I doubt then I would never buy one. Ever.

On a side note, I wore the VT3 on a decompression dive Saturday and after the dive it switched to EL 2 on the boat. I did clear the deco time underwater too. Today I fired it up and it does not recored EL 2. This is the same thing that all the other Oceanic computers had done too.

Is Oceanic computer that bad?

My Ocenaic versa pro did last for a few years.

I own an Aeris Manta (identical to Oceanic Geo). It came with the original battery in november 2007. Now, one year and ~30 dives later it is still not showing the "low battery" signal, so maybe it will last till next year.

I have a Geo (as a back-up to my VT3) that was manufactured 06/2007, I bought it 10/2008 w/the original battery. It has 56 dive hours recorded on it and it still seems to be going strong. I do however carry a back-up battery for it in my save-a-dive.

In terms of Oceanic's reliability, I did have a VT3 flood on me. However, I think that had more to do with the shop I bought the computer from. I believe their policy is to install fresh batteries before they ship the computer to the customer (great policy) and someone did that, but forgot to re-install the O-ring (oops!). It's replacement has the same 56 dive hours on it that the Geo has and also has had no issues. It has given me "Deco-tention" on a couple of dives, but I haven't experienced it changing the altitude setting afterward.

There have been issues with batteries though. I can't recall the specifics, there are threads about it on Scubaboard, but some people experienced short battery life when they installed batteries that were the same type that Oceanic reccomends, but were not from Oceanic. They were bought at the local camera shop, pharmacy, Radio Shack, etc. AFAIK, people that have bought Oceanic OEM battery replacement kits have had no issues with battery life.