Any Suunto D4 reviews to report?

[ADR]

There must be some demo models out there being used by freedivers that someone can hopefully report on?

[Stephan Whelan]

Andy,

We've just had 5 units (pre-production and beta) down at the SETT for instructors and students to use. I'm writing a review as we speak but it won't be out for a few weeks as it's a joint review between Sport Diver UK and DB covering Free and Scuba sides.

I'll pop some details in here later but full review will come out in a few weeks.

Till then here's a picture of it in use.

[ADR]

Awesome Stephan, thanks for the quick response and update. I hope you give the 5 units a really hard time to shake out any D3 type issues. Having had 4 D3s a Mosquito and finally an F1, I'm really hoping the D4 is everything it is reported to be for the sake of freedivers and Suunto. I'm really hoping they will "nail it" with this product.

Is the SETT tank salt or chlorine as I have only experienced problems with D3s with heavy use (duration and depth) in salt water? (regardless of immediate TLC with freshwater cleaning after each dive)

[BennyB]

That's a shame Stephan - we were diving 30m in 8 degree water on the weekend, could have given a D4 a good going over!

[osusim]

I hope we can see D4 soon at the boot.de -- Segeln, Yachtcharter, Bootsmesse, Wassersportmesse, Charter, Motoryachten, Tauchen, Angeln, Surfen -- boot Messe or Duikvaker.

[alphazo]

The user's manual for the D4 is not available (yet) on Suunto website. However, Google indicated its availability on the Aqualung one.... the full one (100 pages).

Enjoy... while waiting for the review!

http://www.aqualung.com/technical_li...en_highres.pdf

[Stephan Whelan]

The D4 is due for release in 2 weeks (beginning of Feb).

Don't worry - the D4's got a good 7 hours of water time of the weekend with multiple dives to various depths to 30m so got a very good workout.

The were pre-production and beta units so there were a couple of bugs on some of the units when testing but I must stress only a couple of the very early units.

The computer isn't just a freediving computer - it's designed to cater for both the freediving and scuba markets. The scuba side of things caters for air/nitrox deco diving.

Freediving wise it has a number of depth and time alarms including a surface interval alarm which was generally very well received by all.

[alphazo]

In fact I'm a scuba diver but I posted the info on this forum due to the shared interest for the D4.

Here are the differences found in the user's manual between the D6 and D4:
- Plastic body on D4
- No electronic compass (D6 only)
- Weight : 85g/3.0 oz (D6: 113g/3.98 oz)
- Oxygen %: 21-50% (21-99% on D6)
- Oxygen partial pressure display: 0.5-1.6 bar (0.2-3 bar on D6)
- Recording interval: new free dive mode (default 1 second, adjustable 1, 2, 5s)
- Sampling rate : 3 times a second but the D4 only stores once a second to the log (depending of the recording interval). It chooses the deepest sample when it stores to the log.
- Higher memory capacity : 80 hours of diving (D6: 36 hours), with 20 second recording interval d'intervale) contre 36 heures
- Battery life is shorter on D4 : 0 dives/y –> 2 years, 100 dives/year –>1,5 years, 300 dives/year –>1 year (D6: 0 dives/y - 3 years, 100 dives/year – 2 years, 300 dives/year – 1.5 years)

Besides the above differences, other technical specifications are pretty much the same between D4 and D6.

Alphazo

[Stephan Whelan]

Suunto have made a sensible decision here - they have built a good freediving facility into a scuba computer. Building just a computer for the freediving market would mean reducing potential target market by a significant percentage.

The similarities in functionality to the D6 isn't by chance - the D6 is an excellent Scuba computer and provided an excellent starting point.

What was pleasing to see was the interest Suunto took in wanting to understand how Freediver use the computer and feed that back into the R&D process. Ultimately the needs of a freediver are significantly less than that of a Scuba diver but in my view combining both a freediving and scuba function into one unit will make the whole package much more attractive to the wider diving market.

As a FYI it's going to be priced (RRP) at 295 (GBP) for the UK market. Can't remember the USD price but I think it's around the 600 USD mark.

[hyeparis]

Originally Posted by Stephan Whelan

Suunto have made a sensible decision here ... As a FYI it's going to be priced (RRP) at 295 (GBP) for the UK market. Can't remember the USD price but I think it's around the 600 USD mark.

Of course, freedivers and spearos can only rejoice, given the fact that D4 costs twice as much as D3. I, for one, am going to look for non-Suunto alternatives and the few Russian spearos who have responded to my post on tetis.ru think the same way, some in expressing their discontent in much stronger language. I don't know whether Suunto would broaden its clientile base by that move in the West, but I am sure it is gonna lose quite a few customers in Russia/FSU.

[Stephan Whelan]

I can understand - that is the only real grumbling i've heard is the cost. However you have to bear in mind that you're buying a computer not just an advanced depth timer.

There is a market out there for a cheap freedive only style computer that has a number of alarms but no computer or logging functionality.

Time will tell about the D4 but I suspect that it will sell well due to it's combined scuba/free functionality and good looks.

[hyeparis]

I did bear in mind that I was buying a freediving computer when I dolled out 300 euros for my Suunto D3 and I don't see why guys like me would pay twice as much for features in D4 that I have no use for because spearfishing with scuba is illegal in Russia and because I don't like that anyway and because I don't plan to be scuba diving either.
PS Also, I still can't quite believe that D4 looks as cheap as D3 - the same plastic that might be functional, but that looks like my high school Soviet electronic watch - so much for the common wisdom that a good product should also look good. Nor can I believe that these instruments are not compatible with Macintosh.

[Stephan Whelan]

Hyeparis: Interesting comments. One question - Have you seen the D4 properly or just seen pictures?

To Everyone Else: Any comments on pricing or functionality?

[BennyB]

You're not just paying for the materials either (plastic, componentry, glass etc), you're paying for a lot of R&D, specialised equipment to develop each part (plastic moulding machines, moulds, production runs for making parts - it costs a lot for example to make widget A in a D4 then to reset the machines to make Widget B in a Mosquito), salaries, wages, useful life of assets, cost of finance, sales team, marketing team, business analysts to decide whether they should even bother making a D4 or if it's a loss making design, software experts to design the computer aspects... the list goes on and on which is why the cheapest looking watch can cost a small fortune.

Of course they have to add their own margin on to make it profitable as well, and they have to decide how many will be sold, how much it costs to make that many and therefore what price they can set to achieve their margin.

The best way to get a cheap Suunto would be to work for Suunto. Second best option is to wait and get one second hand. £300 is a bit hard for me to justify at the moment when I already have 2 working D3's, but they might come down in price a bit later down the track, particularly if something supercedes the D4.

Cheers,
Ben

[BennyB]

Didn't see the last 2 posts before posting. Just to reiterate my mention of plastic moulding, I said above that it costs a lot of money (and time) to reset moulding machines to produce different products. The D3 and Mosquito have an identical design, so i'm guessing this is an example of keeping the same design between products to reduce costs.

Changing designs all the time and making different products that don't share any parts is an easy way to put you out of business.