Buadhai
Contributor
I bought the D4i in October of 2013. After a couple of live aboard trips I discovered that it had failed to save some dives. Suunto replaced it due to a memory error.
I had the battery replaced in October of 2015 even though I never got a "Battery Low" warning. I admit this was an act of precautionary paranoia.
The battery was fine right through a dive trip in December of 2016. Never got a warning about the battery, either on the Time screen in Dive mode.
The next trip was in January of 2017. There was no low battery icon on the Time screen. But, just before the first dive I put it into Dive mode. The screen went blank except for the words "low bat" in the upper left in all lower case. After a few minutes the screen went blank and that’s all she wrote. So, no warnings, just a sudden battery failure after about 15 months. I had to borrow a computer for the entire four day trip.
I again had the battery replaced. It was fine until January 2019 when I started getting "Battery Low" warnings. I had it replaced. The replacement was done by Dive Supply here in Thailand. They did a "Fluck test" of battery consumption. My D4i was within normal limits. But, the technician took the time to write that they will not do battery service on computers that are seven or more years old.
The D4i was fine for my trip in March. But, on the fourth dive of the second trip (May) I got a "Low Battery" warning. This after only four months and about 20 dives. On the next few dives there was no warning and no icon on the Time screen. I got a warning again on the ninth dive but nothing thereafter. On the 11th dive there was no warning on the Time screen before the dive. But, after descending to a couple of meters I looked at the screen and saw that it was blank except for "low bat" at the upper left in all lower case. Once again, that’s all she wrote. I had to borrow a computer for the rest of the trip.
When I got home from the dive trip I plugged my D4i into the computer. The display immediately changed from totally blank to "update". And, there it stayed.
So, I started Suunto DM5. The display changed to "Data Transfer" with a progress bar and DM5 imported all the dives on the computer except for one series that I had already uploaded. (I use Subsurface for saving dives.)
When I disconnected the D4i it appeared to go back to normal displaying the correct time along with the "Low Battery" icon. When I went into Dive mode it displayed "Battery Low".
I exported the last dive as an XML file. It shows the battery level to be 2.7, which is, indeed, very low.
Another oddity is that the DM5 software shows the serial number as 99415022, but the back of the computer says 33100585. Why is that?
So, it seems that there is some flaw in this D4i which causes sudden and rapid battery drain. So sudden that it doesn’t even have time to give a warning.
No reason to trust this computer for future dive trips.
So, what next? My wife has a Zoop Novo which she seems to like very much. Plus it has the advantage of using the same data cable that I bought for the D4i.
But, dare I buy another Suunto product? I’ve had two hardware failures in just a little over five years.
I had the battery replaced in October of 2015 even though I never got a "Battery Low" warning. I admit this was an act of precautionary paranoia.
The battery was fine right through a dive trip in December of 2016. Never got a warning about the battery, either on the Time screen in Dive mode.
The next trip was in January of 2017. There was no low battery icon on the Time screen. But, just before the first dive I put it into Dive mode. The screen went blank except for the words "low bat" in the upper left in all lower case. After a few minutes the screen went blank and that’s all she wrote. So, no warnings, just a sudden battery failure after about 15 months. I had to borrow a computer for the entire four day trip.
I again had the battery replaced. It was fine until January 2019 when I started getting "Battery Low" warnings. I had it replaced. The replacement was done by Dive Supply here in Thailand. They did a "Fluck test" of battery consumption. My D4i was within normal limits. But, the technician took the time to write that they will not do battery service on computers that are seven or more years old.
The D4i was fine for my trip in March. But, on the fourth dive of the second trip (May) I got a "Low Battery" warning. This after only four months and about 20 dives. On the next few dives there was no warning and no icon on the Time screen. I got a warning again on the ninth dive but nothing thereafter. On the 11th dive there was no warning on the Time screen before the dive. But, after descending to a couple of meters I looked at the screen and saw that it was blank except for "low bat" at the upper left in all lower case. Once again, that’s all she wrote. I had to borrow a computer for the rest of the trip.
When I got home from the dive trip I plugged my D4i into the computer. The display immediately changed from totally blank to "update". And, there it stayed.
So, I started Suunto DM5. The display changed to "Data Transfer" with a progress bar and DM5 imported all the dives on the computer except for one series that I had already uploaded. (I use Subsurface for saving dives.)
When I disconnected the D4i it appeared to go back to normal displaying the correct time along with the "Low Battery" icon. When I went into Dive mode it displayed "Battery Low".
I exported the last dive as an XML file. It shows the battery level to be 2.7, which is, indeed, very low.
Another oddity is that the DM5 software shows the serial number as 99415022, but the back of the computer says 33100585. Why is that?
So, it seems that there is some flaw in this D4i which causes sudden and rapid battery drain. So sudden that it doesn’t even have time to give a warning.
No reason to trust this computer for future dive trips.
So, what next? My wife has a Zoop Novo which she seems to like very much. Plus it has the advantage of using the same data cable that I bought for the D4i.
But, dare I buy another Suunto product? I’ve had two hardware failures in just a little over five years.
