Mares Quad Ci: Australian Diver Review

The Mares Quad Ci puts a full-colour display, hoseless air integration and a tilt-compensated compass into a computer selling for around $679 in Australia, and that combination is genuinely hard to beat at the price. It occupies the gap between entry-level wrist computers like the Suunto Zoop Novo and the $1,200-plus flagships, delivering most of what the expensive units do without the premium. For Australian divers moving past their first computer, particularly anyone diving nitrox off charter boats or wanting tank pressure on the wrist, it is one of the strongest value propositions on the market.

## Overview: Mares Quad Ci

Mares built the Quad Ci around a straightforward proposition: take the features that used to define $1,500 computers and ship them at half the price. The headline is the 8-colour high-resolution MIP display, a significant departure from the segmented LCD screens that defined the earlier Quad line. Worth understanding what MIP means in practice: it is a reflective display rather than an emissive one, so it gets more legible as ambient light increases. On a sunlit reef dive at Julian Rocks or across the Ningaloo shallows, that works strongly in your favour. On a night dive, or below 30 metres in green Victorian water, you will be leaning on the backlight.

The more consequential upgrade for experienced divers is the algorithm. Mares historically shipped its own RGBM model with fixed conservatism settings. The Quad Ci runs Bühlmann ZH-L16C with adjustable gradient factors, which brings it in line with the approach Shearwater popularised: you set your own conservatism rather than accepting the manufacturer's interpretation. For divers doing repetitive multi-day profiles on a Coral Sea or Rowley Shoals liveaboard, that control matters, and it is rare at this price.

Against the Suunto Zoop Novo at $350 to $500, the Quad Ci adds colour, a compass, air integration and gradient factors. Against the Shearwater Peregrine at $735 to $1,000, it trades Shearwater's superior display and interface polish for air integration the base Peregrine does not offer at all.

## Key Features

- 8-colour high-resolution MIP display with customisable layouts - Hoseless air integration supporting up to 5 transmitters, with colour-coded tank pressure - Bühlmann ZH-L16C algorithm with user-adjustable gradient factors - Air, nitrox and trimix modes, up to 3 gases including normoxic and hypoxic mixes - Full-tilt digital compass with bearing memory and stopwatch - Rechargeable lithium battery, around 20 hours of dive time per charge with a transmitter paired and roughly 30 hours without - Battery rated to approximately 500 charge cycles, charged via a USB clip - Logbook holding 100 hours of dive profiles, sampled every 5 seconds - Bluetooth syncing to the Mares app for log download and firmware updates

## The Good

- **The colour display earns its place, rather than being a spec-sheet flourish.** Colour-coding tank pressure means you read your gas state as a glance rather than a number you have to interpret, which matters when you are managing a group or task-loaded in current. The high-contrast MIP panel stays legible at wide viewing angles, so you can check it without rotating your wrist mid-fin. - **Air integration for up to 5 transmitters is unusually generous at this price.** Most computers offering integration at all cap at one or two. Five means you can run a twin set, monitor a stage cylinder, or track a buddy's pressure on a training dive without hitting the ceiling of the hardware. - **Adjustable gradient factors put conservatism in the diver's hands.** For repetitive diving across multi-day liveaboard trips, being able to run a more conservative profile deliberately, rather than being forced into one, is the difference between a computer you tolerate and one you trust. - **The tilt-compensated compass with bearing memory is a genuine navigation tool.** Non-compensated compasses require holding your wrist level to read true, which is awkward mid-water. Reading accurately at any wrist angle makes it usable at sites where bearings actually matter, such as Fish Rock Cave or a Gold Coast Seaway drift. - **Trimix support on a sub-$700 computer provides real headroom.** Most divers buying at this price will never blend helium, but if you progress toward technical training the computer does not immediately become the limiting factor.

## The Bad

- **The transmitter is sold separately and it is not cheap.** Air integration is the Quad Ci's marquee feature, but the advertised price buys the computer alone. Budget for the transmitter as a substantial addition, which narrows the gap to computers that looked more expensive on paper. - **The rechargeable battery removes the option of a field swap.** A user-replaceable coin cell can be changed on a boat with a screwdriver and a spare from any newsagent. The Quad Ci needs its proprietary charging clip, so on a remote multi-day trip to the Rowley Shoals or a week in the Coral Sea, forgetting the clip leaves you without a computer and no local fix. - **MIP is not AMOLED, and the difference shows in low light.** Against the newer AMOLED units, the Quad Ci looks muted in dark water and relies on the backlight where an emissive screen simply glows. The trade is battery life and bright-water performance, which is a reasonable exchange, but divers doing mostly night or deep temperate diving should weigh it. - **Three gases and no closed-circuit support cap its technical ceiling.** The trimix capability is real but limited. Divers heading toward serious decompression or rebreather diving will outgrow it and should look at a Shearwater Perdix or Teric instead.

## Verdict

The Mares Quad Ci is the most computer you can buy for around $679 in Australia. Colour display, air integration for five transmitters, a tilt-compensated compass, Bühlmann with adjustable gradient factors and trimix headroom is a specification list that belonged to the $1,500 bracket a few years ago. The compromises are honest ones: the transmitter costs extra, the rechargeable battery cannot be swapped in the field, and the MIP display trades low-light punch for daylight legibility and endurance.

Buy it if you are upgrading from a first computer and want air integration and navigation without crossing $1,000. Look elsewhere if you need a field-replaceable battery for remote expedition diving, or if you are heading toward rebreather and heavy decompression work.

Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ (4.5/5)