Juhanis Blog

I got Suunto Elementum Aqua to test from Suunto in 18 of June and have been testing it since then.  I promised to make a review of it and here it goes.

People that are interested of what it is, here is a link for Suunto homepage.

http://www.suuntocampaigns.com/Elementum/

Well what could I say, it’ s good looking watch and of course. You can use it in daily work easily and even can be proud of wearing it, but you must remember that this is not an dive computer. This is basically good looking watch that you can use also in diving.

So lets do a little comparison. There is little similar products in Suunto also. D4, D6 and D9 are fully functional dive computers, so why you would buy this one. The price, in Finland the price is 625 € so it is quite cheap for luxury watch.

In the watch there are two buttons, the other one is one you can turn in both directions like scrolling logs. The dive mode turns automatically in deeper than 1.2 meters. The watch logs automatically dive time, depth, temperature  date  and time . Though at the temperature does not save into logs, you can only see that during the dive.

The user interface is very easy, when taking it from the box, you just press one button and it starts.  After setting the time and date the clock is fully functional. Setting the time and date is very easy because of this scrolling button. One of the coolest feature it has keylock, when pressing both buttons the keylock is enabled and disabled.

I got this watch right before I went to traveling into Romania.  I haven’t used wristwatch for a while so it needed some learning again, but as soon as I get used it again, I started thinking of how easy is to look the time from watch either than watching it from mobile phone.

The first problem occurred at my flight to back Finland. The watch thought I was diving in airplane when it started landing. I noticed that the problem was that I held my arms crossed and my arm was on top of the sensor. The sensor works that way that when it got moisture on top, the clock makes decision that it is in the water. Well of course this is quite minor problem, but also sure that there could be someway to go around this problem.

After spending some time in Romania I also noticed that the time isn’t that accurate, after couple weeks the clock was delayed about one minute or so. I hope they fix this.

Then the third problem was I didn’t figure out what the clock was showing after one dive. I went about 16 meters and as my way home I noticed that the clock was showing 1.3 meters and counting hours. I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t would out from the book that came with the clock. I had to look several times before I found out that there is full manual in Internet. In that manual I found out that it was actually surface time that the clock was counting and the limit when dive starts is 1.2 meters so it means that after my main dive, I probably putted that clock in that 1.3 meters and the surface time started from that. I have heard some Suunto dive computers to do that the dive newer ends. Of course I thought it was that the case. Well good that it wasn’t so but I would say that the diving mode in at least some detail should be in the manual that comes with the clock. I hope they will fix this as well.

After using it for a month now, I still consider it to be most suitable watch for me at least, it’s black and cool and of course you can dive with it and it’s good secondary dive watch, as my main dive computer is Suunto Vyper currently. So if my main computer breaks or battery run out, I still have my watch where I know max depth and diving time. I don’t know what would then happen if my main dive computer would be like D9 or D6, would I use this still….

Update 7 October

Well, I have been diving with this now several times, and I have to admit although it’s not diving computer. It really is good watch and strong. My cat have been dropping it from table, I have been stepping over it, and it just continues working. There is still none scratch in the glass. Some small scratch it has in metal but otherwise not. So if thinking of watch for my, this starts to be really realistic and I would consider of buying one.