Handheld gps

[njc1973]

Looking to buy a new gps and have narrowed it down to Garmin g8, golf buddy pt4 or the sky caddie touch. Specifically want one with the picture of the hole and distance to hazards etc, the ideal would be a course planner with gps. Not bothered about scorecards or storing/ analyzing data.

From my research it looks like:

the sky caddie has the best images but the interface and screen are slow and clunky, it’s difficult to get all the info on the screen at the same time and you have to pay annual fees.

The golf buddy has low tech graphics, has issues with the placement of the on/off button, battery life and waterproofing.

The Garmin again has low tech graphics and sometime has issues picking up satellites.

I’m swaying towards the Garmin unless someone knows of anything new to market or can convince me one of the others would be better.

 

[Coffey]

Looking to buy a new gps and have narrowed it down to Garmin g8, golf buddy pt4 or the sky caddie touch. Specifically want one with the picture of the hole and distance to hazards etc, the ideal would be a course planner with gps. Not bothered about scorecards or storing/ analyzing data.

From my research it looks like:

the sky caddie has the best images but the interface and screen are slow and clunky, it’s difficult to get all the info on the screen at the same time and you have to pay annual fees.

The golf buddy has low tech graphics, has issues with the placement of the on/off button, battery life and waterproofing.

The Garmin again has low tech graphics and sometime has issues picking up satellites.

I’m swaying towards the Garmin unless someone knows of anything new to market or can convince me one of the others would be better.

I have the Garmin G6 and have had it for about 2.5 years. It is a great device.

The battery would last 3 rounds normally but I normally charge it after 2 just to be sure.

The maps are good, can zoom in to get yardage to hazards/corners etc. The graphics aren't amazing but they do the job and don't really think I would need any better.

I have not been able to find a course once in the 2.5 years I have used it. It was my new home course, the first time I played it for some reason it wouldn't pick up the first tee at the start. I have never had that issue since though and it has only been that one time.

Overall it is a good device. It does have the scorecard functionality and a few other things but I have never used it.

Also not sure what the difference is between the G6 and the G8.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Another vote for the G6
Unless you just want to spend a wad more on the G8 for not much different results

 

[anotherdouble]

Golf buddy pt4 is being replace either March or April. Not a lot of places sell the pt4 now. Think the new one is called tour2

 

[gmhubble]

I used to have the G6 and switched to the S60 - don’t rule a really good watch out

I won’t switch back to handheld again

S60 is an awesome bit of kit

 

[Jacko_G]

Skycaddie Touch. Can't beat it. Superb bit of kit and the only company who maps out every course and will go back and map out changes. Wouldn't spend my money on anything else.

 

[C&R]

Skycaddie Touch. Can't beat it. Superb bit of kit and the only company who maps out every course and will go back and map out changes. Wouldn't spend my money on anything else.

Yep. I second that. I wouldn't be without my skycaddie touch. Brilliant bit of kit

 

[njc1973]

Skycaddie Touch. Can't beat it. Superb bit of kit and the only company who maps out every course and will go back and map out changes. Wouldn't spend my money on anything else.

That would be the plus point for me but a lot of the reviews say that the touchscreen is unresponsive and it doesn’t always move manually to the next hole plus if you want distances to targets you’ve got to go round the houses. How do you find it?

 

[jim8flog]

I ditched my sky caddie due to poor customer service - no replacement part for a lost battery cover on a 3 month old device , no interest in asking America for one and just wanted to sell me a new unit.

I bought the Garmin G5 as a replacement.

On the whole a good unit. My gripes are some holes lack all necessary distances, mainly back of greens (but I had the same problem with sky caddie on some courses) and it can be poor at picking up satellites on tree lined holes and does not automatically change holes all the time.

 

[Jacko_G]

That would be the plus point for me but a lot of the reviews say that the touchscreen is unresponsive and it doesn’t always move manually to the next hole plus if you want distances to targets you’ve got to go round the houses. How do you find it?

Never had any issues at all. The device moves seamlessly from hole to hole and the accuracy is top notch. I know someone who has a different device and on one of our holes that has been changed for over two years his still shoes the old hole. I find that incredible. What do you mean by going round the houses?

I touch the green on the screen where the flag roughly is and it automatically changes.

 

[njc1973]

Warning a bit of a long post, but these are the common complaints that I've seen about the Sky Caddie Touch, have these been fixed with subsequent upgrades or do they still occur (I'm asking because if the issues have been resolved the Touch would be my preferred option)

SETUP/SYNCING
We first had issues installing the desktop software, and then experienced the pain of not knowing if updates were happening correctly. In the end it took a number of times plugging and unplugging the device to get it to work. At times the process seemed to hang, but if we left it alone, it would eventually updated a bunch of items (though the device was new): rounds, odometer data, pin location, etc. This was the smoothest part of the process, taking 30 minutes to get the device updated and the membership activated. However, upon syncing the device again, we found that our membership hadn’t activated the TOUCH, and the device required two more separate software updates. The desktop software failed to find the SkyCaddie multiple times when attempting each software update, and also crashed multiple times seemingly at the very end of the upgrade process. All of this tacked on another hour and 45 minutes of setup. One word: awful.
EASE OF USE
• Buttons. The TOUCH comes with two buttons on either side of the device that require a firm press. The left button activates the menu, and the right the power/lock. The power button did not work on several occasions, forcing us to press a combination of buttons to power off the TOUCH.
There are two additional “buttons” that are integrated into the face of the device just below the screen and enable the user to move between menu items and zoom in/out of holes. These buttons are not as responsive as we would like.
• Touchscreen/Device Rotation. The touchscreen will display a number of softkeys to enable users to make selections, move up/down in menus, and mark points on the hole. The touchscreen was unpredictably sensitive – we would find it easy at times to tap green locations, enter our scores, and drag our finger on the screen to select target locations, then be stymied by the delay when selecting menus. One bug we experienced was that the touchscreen would sometimes highlight our menu selection, but not actually select it, so we would have to repeatedly press the same softkey to get it to respond.
COURSE DETAIL AND MAPPING
Some of the issues we encountered with HoleVue include:
• Yardages would overlap: hole, to green, arcs, and distance to point/green.
• We experienced a number of holes where we sometimes were able to zoom, but then other times were not.
• In some cases holes images would be cropped or off-center, making target selections difficult.
• When you select a target point on the screen with your finger, you will see the distance to that point, but the TOUCH will not simultaneously display the distance to the green to allow you plan a shot ahead. In order to get that information, you need to zoom in at least one level, and the distance to the green only appears once you are done selecting the point and let go.
• Hazard distances are not shown in the initial view, which is a real bummer. To see distances to hazards you need to zoom in to least one level. And even after you have zoomed, there are still points that are shown on the screen (target points are shown as yellow dots), but for which distances were not provided, even though they were relevant and there was room to display them on the screen.
• The screen does not display the par of the hole. To see the par for the hole you need to tap the softkey/box displaying the direct distance to green (not exactly intuitive), which then also shows also the hole handicap and distances to near and far green points.
Overlapping the hole graphic are a number of softkeys – the current hole number (which will take you to a screen to choose the hole you want to see), the direct distance to the green (to get the data described in the last bullet point above), a golf ball icon (to track shot distances), a scorecard (to see and enter scores), and an eye icon (to change views). The TOUCH display doesn’t have the smarts we would like, with hole information (hole number, distance to center of green) sometimes overlapping more relevant distance information.
Once you click to start the round, the Touch displays an overview of the hole that you can zoom in and out on using the buttons below the screen or by tapping the screen itself.
On the hole view, you have 'Dynamic RangeVue' distance rings to give a guide to the length of the hole relative to driving distance, but the distances to hazards are not marked on the overview.
To see the hazard information you have to enable the Target function in the device settings and then scroll through the other screens using the Eye button in the bottom right to get a list of hazards and their distances, which is not particularly user friendly.

 

[JollyRedDevil]

I have Garmin G7 and it has been great. The only regret I have is not buying the cheaper G5/G6.
G7 has lots of functionality that I haven't ever used. G8 would be even worse.
My advice is, unless you specifically need the functions offered by the more expensive models, save yourself a lot of cash and get the G5 or G6.

 

[chasf]

i have the g8 and golf buddy pt4. And the gamin is the better poduct The golf buddy unit kept crashing and resetting for no reason and updates did not help. The bigger screen is the only decent thing about it Only get the g8 if you will use the extra features such as play like distance pin pointer etc These have to be switched off in competitions. The g6 which i also had will be fine, screen size is about the same and gives you all the information you need.

I am waiting on a set of cobra f8 ions so will be giving the arcos system and app a try. Only thing that puts me off with that is battey life with my phone and having to carry it in my pocket