Apostasy
New
Sharing my tale of woe and angst here, so you all may come to greater wisdom.
DISCLAIMER: The folks at SCUBAPRO have treated me very well, as has the LDS staff that originally sold the comp to me. They're all gods among insects in my book, and they all jumped out of their a$$es to make it right for me.
BACKSTORY: I bought an ALADIN Square a couple weeks prior to my first OW dive in May of this year. My dive buddy got one as well.
(brief aside) My buddy and I completed pool /classroom for OW in January, but due to scheduling conflicts ended up completing drysuit pool/classroom and checkouts about two weeks BEFORE OW checkouts. Neither here nor there, only mentioning it here to avoid confusion.
I and my buddy both had our Squares for our drysuit checkouts. Mine performed flawlessly, while my buddy's comp locked up tighter than Dick's hatband at depth. His was summarily replaced (as I said, our LDS staff are great people to work with), and I had mine on hand for OW checkouts later that month. OW checkouts took place, and my buddy's new Square again took a dump on him at depth, while mine was still grinning. Fed up, my buddy upgraded to a Galileo Luna (which he still uses to this day and is supremely happy with), and I kept using my Square.
OW and drysuit certs out of the way, we settle into a schedule of one dive day a week at the local quarry (2-3 dives each time) to hone our water skills in preparation for our upcoming Public Safety Diver certs. My Square continues to do all you would expect a comp to do, except that I notice that it doesn't seem to be keeping track of desat/surface interval times when the comp goes to sleep. As we're going a week between dive days, I don't give it a lot of thought, and we get our PSD certs in July with a minimum of fuss, with me logging dives with the Square the whole time.
I get the recall letter from SCUBAPRO in August, and dutifully trade in my comp (which is still working at this point, aside from desat/interval tracking) for an allegedly unaffected model. Same desat/interval issue as before, so I contact SCUBAPRO directly. They have me swap out the one I have with a new one, and I take the new one to the local quarry to wring it out. Five minutes into my second dive, I notice condensation inside the case and I know it's taking on water. Up to this point it seems to be calculating the desat times as it should, but the foggy screen is worrisome, to say the least. About the time we're thinking about the safety stop, it locks up for good.
Obviously I opt out of the Square in favor of the Chromis at this point. The LDS staff even swap out download cables for me gratis. I'll let you know how it does.
BOTTOM LINE: I think the Square will eventually be an excellent computer, once they iron out the myriad design flaws. For now, I'd advise laying out the $50 USD extra for the Chromis.
DISCLAIMER: The folks at SCUBAPRO have treated me very well, as has the LDS staff that originally sold the comp to me. They're all gods among insects in my book, and they all jumped out of their a$$es to make it right for me.
BACKSTORY: I bought an ALADIN Square a couple weeks prior to my first OW dive in May of this year. My dive buddy got one as well.
(brief aside) My buddy and I completed pool /classroom for OW in January, but due to scheduling conflicts ended up completing drysuit pool/classroom and checkouts about two weeks BEFORE OW checkouts. Neither here nor there, only mentioning it here to avoid confusion.
I and my buddy both had our Squares for our drysuit checkouts. Mine performed flawlessly, while my buddy's comp locked up tighter than Dick's hatband at depth. His was summarily replaced (as I said, our LDS staff are great people to work with), and I had mine on hand for OW checkouts later that month. OW checkouts took place, and my buddy's new Square again took a dump on him at depth, while mine was still grinning. Fed up, my buddy upgraded to a Galileo Luna (which he still uses to this day and is supremely happy with), and I kept using my Square.
OW and drysuit certs out of the way, we settle into a schedule of one dive day a week at the local quarry (2-3 dives each time) to hone our water skills in preparation for our upcoming Public Safety Diver certs. My Square continues to do all you would expect a comp to do, except that I notice that it doesn't seem to be keeping track of desat/surface interval times when the comp goes to sleep. As we're going a week between dive days, I don't give it a lot of thought, and we get our PSD certs in July with a minimum of fuss, with me logging dives with the Square the whole time.
I get the recall letter from SCUBAPRO in August, and dutifully trade in my comp (which is still working at this point, aside from desat/interval tracking) for an allegedly unaffected model. Same desat/interval issue as before, so I contact SCUBAPRO directly. They have me swap out the one I have with a new one, and I take the new one to the local quarry to wring it out. Five minutes into my second dive, I notice condensation inside the case and I know it's taking on water. Up to this point it seems to be calculating the desat times as it should, but the foggy screen is worrisome, to say the least. About the time we're thinking about the safety stop, it locks up for good.
Obviously I opt out of the Square in favor of the Chromis at this point. The LDS staff even swap out download cables for me gratis. I'll let you know how it does.
BOTTOM LINE: I think the Square will eventually be an excellent computer, once they iron out the myriad design flaws. For now, I'd advise laying out the $50 USD extra for the Chromis.
