The software upgrade makes a big difference, says Charles Hood |
VR3 dive computer with 2008 software • £857.75 (air/nitrox open circuit); upgrades from £131
I – and quite a few other VR3 owners, I gather – have a love-hate relationship with this dive computer. On the plus side, it does everything that you would ever need of a computer. It can be used with air, nitrox and trimix in both open- and closed-circuit modes. You can switch gas underwater, and even change the mix of the gas on the fly should you have to use an unplanned gas mixture.
The problem is that it’s horrible to use. The logic behind setting it up and accessing some of the features is very confusing. Indeed, many internet forums have been set up purely to discuss how to drive the beast. But with the release of the 2008 version, is all this about to change? I had mine upgraded to the new G10 software to find out.
The first thing you notice is that the display is brighter and more colourful, thanks to the new high-definition display software. Indeed, in colour mode, it is beautifully easy to read and logically laid out. But the greatest update is the faster and much more user-friendly navigation process. Instead of having to go into endless sub-menus that involve short, long, double and double-long pressing of the two switches, you can scroll through the main function screens by pressing just one button. Once into the chosen menu, there is still a degree of double and short button-pressing, but at least it appears more logical than its predecessor.
The die-hards can run the VR3 in X10 mode, which is the old-fashioned menu system. Quite why you’d want to is beyond me – the only reason I can think of is to use the screen saver, which simply displays your time-to-surface and sadly isn’t in the new software. Another neat feature of the new mode is that you can customise the display so you can choose what you want on the screen. I chose to have depth, dive time, maximum depth, no-stop time and time-to-surface on mine with the little graph of the dive profile at the bottom, which made it logical and simple to read.
I compared the VR3’s Bulhmann algorithm with that of the Suunto, and both are pretty similar – especially if you run deep stops on the Suunto. There is also the option of switching to the VPM algorithm favoured by some rebreather divers, which requires a much slower ascent. I tested this on a dive to 37m for a bottom time of 16 minutes on air, and it required a whopping ten minutes more decompression stops over Suunto’s D9. I also found that if you set the VR3’s algorithm to make final stops at 4.5m instead of 6m, it cuts your stop time by about 20 per cent.
To summarise, the new VR3 is much easier to get to grips with than earlier models, and although it’s a bit expensive as a basic computer, it does have a great upgrade path for any aspiring technical diver. Having said that, I’m trying to get its maker to put four buttons on a computer to make it super-easy to navigate – the VR4 perhaps?
DIVE says…
New software makes a big difference
Value 7
Performance 9
Contact
VR Technology • 01202 624478
• www.vr3.co.uk