Suunto dominates the Scuba diving watch market, however it seems that its reign may be over with the new diving watch from Scubapro/Uwatec. But will the Scubapro Prime be able to challenge the market leader? We go underwater to find out.

Our quick take

ScbuaPro/Uwatec are obviously targeting the Suunto Vyper and Gekko dive watches and judging by our tests Suunto, the market leaders, have a real battle on their hands.

This product was kindly loaned to us by

divecrew.co.uk

Scubapro Prime dive computer - 4.0 / 5

FORAGAINST
  • Push buttons
  • Watch function
  • A little chunky on the wrist

According to Uwatec, the 21st century has arrived. Finally designers have accepted that people want to be able to push buttons - and not have the need to lick your fingers to use the computer out of the water.

Big improvements on the watch, aside from the buttons, include a major overhaul in looks - it is now round and stylish. The fact it is full downloadable and comes with the software included is also a bonus. To transfer the date to the PC the watch uses infrared transmission, the thoughts being that Laptops and PDAs will soon become apart of your diving kit alongside your fins. A touch for non techno-savvy downloaders is that if you do not have infra red there is a USB adapter - So all bases are covered.

The list of improvements over the old versions continues with Temperature display, full watch functions and backlight - it sound like common sense to include these, but these have been seriously lacking from Uwatec entry dive computers.

To recap

Suunto look to have a challenger to its diving watch reign