Garmin is no stranger to dive computers. They’ve made a number of them clad in a sports watch form factor over the last few years. With the Garmin Descent X50i, though, the outfit moves on to a bigger, more traditional dive computer form factor.
While it no longer looks like a GPS sports watch, the new dive computer is still designed to strap on to your wrist, allowing you to see important information about the dive with a quick glance. The big advantage, though, is the bigger display, which enables it to display a lot more data in one go, minimizing the need to fiddle with the device to see additional screens.
The Garmin Descent X50i has a 3-inch color touchscreen display (640 x 360 resolution) that secures to your wrist using a pair of straps. It mounts across your wrist in a landscape form factor, ensuring it fits snugly without the edges jutting out of the sides of your arm. According to the outfit, it has a 20ATM water rating, allowing divers to wear it to depths of up to 600 feet. Do note, the touchscreen interface doesn’t work underwater, so you’ll need to use the leakproof buttons to change screens or fiddle with the menu in the middle of a dive.
It can pair with the outfit’s transceivers to accurately monitor air tank pressure, with support for up to eight tanks in one go, with built-in ABC sensors and a dive compass to help you navigate every part of the dive. Because of the screen size, it can display numerous data fields in one go, giving you all the information you need to understand your current situation, so you can make well-informed decisions in real time. You can also add more screens with customized field layouts, depending on your specific needs.
The Garmin Descent X50i comes with subwave sonar networking, allowing you to exchange preset messages (e.g. “Come to me,” “Safely end dive,” and “Are you ok?”) with other divers in the water, all while monitoring tank pressure, depth, and distance for up to eight divers in your group, so long as they come to within a 33-feet range. While on the surface, you can use the built-in GPS with the preloaded TopoActive maps, which comes with DiveView maps of over 4,000 dive sites, so you can plan your dives accordingly. It also logs your entry and exit points on each dive, although the GPS doesn’t work underwater, so you have to rely strictly on the ABC sensors for making your way in the depths.
The dive computer will log various data on your dives, including depth charts, depth history, and other important stats. Other features include dual elastic straps with one-handed closure, an adjustable lock to help prevent slipping, 32GB of storage (keeps up to 200 dives), an LED flashlight, and a battery life of 16 hours at medium brightness. It’s designed to work with a companion app (iOS and Android) that lets you log, track, and share all of your dives.
The Garmin Descent X50i is available now, priced at $1,499.99.
