Xen or Petrel?

[WhiteSands]

I'm thinking of upgrading to one of the above to make it easy to read in the dark.
I'm not considering the XDeep at this point.

Which would you choose, and why please?

Thanks.

 

[PfcAJ]

Petrel.

i own a xen, it's nice and I enjoy it. But the petrel is better because the display doesn't wear out and it takes AA batteries that you can source literally all over the world. The Xen takes fancy batteries that must be either recharged or replaced.

Both fall into the "fancy trinket" category for me, though. Any dive I can do with one of those bottom timers I can also do with a uwatec puck or a 2g for a hundred dollars.

 

[victorzamora]

I really like them both, but would recommend a Petrel for the reasons AJ mentioned. Disclaimer: I own a Petrel.

The things to mention that AJ didn't are that the Petrel's screen is bigger, which is nice. I also dislike the form factor of the Xen. It's weird to me, and it's hard for me to understand how that's comfortable to anybody (having dove one, I just didn't get it). Also, the tap-interface gets REALLY old, really quickly. The UI simply isn't as good as the Petrel's to begin with, but that tap interface got frustrating.....so much so that a buddy with two X1s is now diving two Petrels.

 

[macado]

Petrel all the way... They're very good about new firmware updates, customer service is great and it takes a AA battery. I also prefer the larger screen.

They're both good products but I prefer Petrel. I prefer the navigation on the Shearwater computers compared to the tap based navigation on the Liquidvision computers.

 

[tbone1004]

Petrel as well, reasons mentioned above are all of them, just adding the extra vote

 

[Tug]

I've had a Xen since they first came out, and while it's nice, I prefer the shearwater.

The customer service is night and day different between Shearwater and Liquivision and I feel that Shearwater just makes a better and more robust product.

For example, the battery on the Petrel is m easily sourced AA and the battery for the Xen is pretty much proprietary. Also, if the battery dies for a while on the Xen, you need to enter an unlock code that they emailed. It was a few weeks (probably closer to a month) since I last used my Xen and the rechargeable battery had died. When I went to replace the battery on the dive boat, it asked me for the unlock code. Unfortunately I didn't have the email handy so the Xen was useless and locked out.

I don't mean to sound like I'm bashing the Xen since aside from the battery issues, I do enjoy it. However, when it dies, I will be replacing it with a petrel.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PfcAJ]

I really like them both, but would recommend a Petrel for the reasons AJ mentioned. Disclaimer: I own a Petrel.

The things to mention that AJ didn't are that the Petrel's screen is bigger, which is nice. I also dislike the form factor of the Xen. It's weird to me, and it's hard for me to understand how that's comfortable to anybody (having dove one, I just didn't get it). Also, the tap-interface gets REALLY old, really quickly. The UI simply isn't as good as the Petrel's to begin with, but that tap interface got frustrating.....so much so that a buddy with two X1s is now diving two Petrels.

See that's weird, I really like the tap interface a lot. I found it to be really intuitive and I like the idea of no buttons.

One things for sure, the petrel is BIG. I appreciate the size of the Xen compared to the petrel.

 

[Matan]

if both cost the same, than take the Petrel.

I own a xen and really happy with it - no trouble, and after a while with it (dive with it every week past year and a half ++++) its awsome and I realize to anticipate charging for the battery.

yet, a really expensive BT, that as said here, is a nice thing to have (I love it), but my good old uwatec 330m does the same (minus avg. depth reset and seconds lol).

so why petrel? seems more robust if you ask me. I think best option available today is the Heinrich Weikamp (kill me if I spelled it right) OSTC-2N, which is also really cheap.

Matan.

 

[Michael Guerrero]

Petrel. It's awesome.

 

[WhiteSands]

Hey all
thanks for your inputs.

Matan, I actually prefer the look of the OSTC and the fact that it runs on open source software (i can tweak anything to add/change whatever I want). However i understand the unit has a 120m limit. I don't think I will be pushing those depths anytime soon but I don't like to think in future there will be dives I cannot do on it.

The only thing I dont like about the petrel is the size. But I guess Petrel it is.