Pa Jayhawk
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2005
- Messages
- 7,206
- Reaction score
- 68
I got this Monday night. Since we are supposed to get about 4" of snow today, and it has already started, I will just give initial thoughts here and update it later when I have a chance to use it a little more. Price: $229, $10 for 5 belt clips (came with 1), $5 for 2 screen Protectors (came with 1 installed).
Best I can tell, the membership is $29.99. I initially thought this was yearly, but am under the impression now it is permanent for a couple reasons. It is not unlimited but instead for 50 courses. They have a "Accessory" list for 25 additional courses for $10 for members. Initially I was on the fence about joining. I then found out this will also increase your warranty from 3 months to one year. It also includes one mapped course. So I will join it shortly, once I test the device and am convinced I will not be sending it back for a refund, which at this point is highly unlikely. I also searched the 65 courses I have played and may possibly play again. Out of the 65 they had 57 with GPS Pages. The reason I did not buy the Skycaddie is they had only 1 of the 23 I checked mapped. So I guess this must be bigger in this area. Again though, not sure the quality of the maps yet. But I will be doing my own for my favorite 3-4 courses so that it has my own points.
Software and Course Creation:
The software installed just fine and is simple to figure out. They do have a Newer Beta version of the software on their site, it has a better system to create your own sites, however it lacks some of the functionality of the old software, but contain a better course creator. So I simply installed both versions and use the one to create courses and the other to sync. You could do the same for the course creation by simply going to the site. I would assume once it is out of Beta, it may run resident on your PC. One little bug I noticed the one time I tried. It will sync courses, as well as backup to a separate directory. On the Backup, it at least appeared the one time I tried that it would not overwrite existing courses in the backup directory. I had to delete on the PC and then backup my modifications.
The creation process is quite simple. You either enter the Scorecard info, or download it from the site if you are a member. If you know what you plan to map on the course you simply go in and plug in the names for the 8 additional points. You save this to the PC, then load it onto the GPS. All the backups and file storage are on your PC. You are permitted 5 text characters for each point and they provide an abbreviation list that is consistent with the courses you download or you can type your own. This can also be done directly on the unit at the course, but is easier for me on the PC. If you pay attention to how the points display, you can set it up so all the left points are on the left of the screen and all the right are on the right, although blanks will change this, so you need to put none in if you do this.
Mapping course:
As mentioned, you can do the points on the PC, or on the unit. I did it on the PC. To map you just tell it you wish to map the course. Select the course based on name. Go to the first hole. You can then scroll to any point you have entered or enter one from a digital keypad or saved list of Abbreviations. Simply enter register and it takes about 2-5 seconds to log the point. Repeat for all 8 points as well as front back and center of green and hit save for that hole. Go to next hole and repeat. Actually it is simpler to use than I expected.
Unit information:
When I got this, it took a little tinkering to get it working to my liking. I have owned numerous GPS systems, and have two others right now. Although this is my first golf one. Out of the box, I popped in the batteries, turned it on and started playing around. Though I would go out and initialize it to my area. At first I was slightly disgusted at the time it took to initialize until I figure a few things out. At this time it is 20* outside and 20mph winds. I'm standing in my front yard freezing my @$$ off, which added to the aggravation. Anyways, I turn it on the satellite screen comes up. With most GPS's, you can go about your business why it initializes. I start playing around with it. After a couple minutes the thing is still not initialized, I've had enough of the cold and go back inside. I put it on the satellite screen and stick it in the window. 20 minutes pass and I am pissed, no initialization. I know, I am indoors, but my other GPS's will initialize from a window. It has only found 1-2 satellites, and best I can tell it looks like an old serial scan, only tracking 1 at a time and about 20-30 seconds in between satelittes, where common units track up to 12. I am convinced the thing is likely going back for refund. I figure read the book, play around and deal with it in the morning. I did not find anything in the manual, but figured I would play with the unit. I turn it on and notice it is scanning each satellite at 1 second interval. I thought this was funny, and maybe it needed to initialize prior to playing. Turned it off, went back out, turned it on, shivered for about 30-45 seconds and it was initialized. All was well, it was tracking all the satellites at once, as a parallel GPS will do 12 at a time, It had a lock on 7. Knowing a little about it, you require 3 for Triangulating location and 4 if you require elevation.
Yesterday I played around a little. Going in I saw review of a couple things. The most common that the accuracy would vary if you set at a point to long, maybe up to 15 yards. The numbers bounce around. Mine did this, and actually logging points in my yard they were off by 5-15 yards. Hardly good for a GPS. Although, I had read the manual the night before and was somewhat convinced from the reviews I read, the people needed to play with the settings. There is a WAAS control, which is common in the US to help out. Once I disabled this in the settings and logged points it was listing everything to within 1 yard when I stood at the point I logged, moved, and came back. I am not sure that 0 was an option. Close enough for government work, close enough for me. The Stabilization's with slow the counting and jumping of numbers. I doubt I will use this. I am also convinced the people who reviewed this about the jumping needed to disable the WAAS. They took the initial number. Knowing a GPS tracks every couple seconds, they were likely better taking the last number as it caught up after a few seconds. I put two rechargeable batteries in, have used it for a couple hours and it is still at 100%. Make sure to turn the battery setting to rechargeable if that is what you are using. Originally read 53% prior to doing so.
It has a backlight that can be toggled from the power button. Strangely, you cannot toggle the back light from the initial satellite screen, but can do so from any other point. The belt clip does seem cheap as I heard, but I got 5 extras. It will do yards or meters. It has a Trickle GPS mode, I assume to save batteries, but it really didn't explain too much on this. One important thing. It sets up as a com port device on USB. This is never touched on in the manual, outside of saying it takes several minutes to load a course. It was extremely slow to my liking for how USB will operate. After thinking about this, I checked the baud rate on the port, which defaulted to 9600 as I expected. I bumped this up to 128,000 and it worked more closely to how a USB port should operate, but still slow for the size of the file. Certainly acceptable for how few times you will likely transfer files. They may be worried the data will not transfer completely accurate at that speed, although I would doubt this to be an issue from my experience.
Again, I am getting 4" or more of snow today, so I likely won't play around with it too much until tomorrow or the weekend. At which time I will likely join the site and see how thorough the courses are set up from the site. It will likely be the end of March before I can make it on the course. In the mean time I will kind of test it out compared to my Range Finder, although it will likely be a month before I can provide a real accurate review of the device.
Just based on my familiarity with GPS systems, ease of use, and the fact you can easily add and edit your own points and store on PC, I am inclined to believe this is a keeper. Time will tell.
Best I can tell, the membership is $29.99. I initially thought this was yearly, but am under the impression now it is permanent for a couple reasons. It is not unlimited but instead for 50 courses. They have a "Accessory" list for 25 additional courses for $10 for members. Initially I was on the fence about joining. I then found out this will also increase your warranty from 3 months to one year. It also includes one mapped course. So I will join it shortly, once I test the device and am convinced I will not be sending it back for a refund, which at this point is highly unlikely. I also searched the 65 courses I have played and may possibly play again. Out of the 65 they had 57 with GPS Pages. The reason I did not buy the Skycaddie is they had only 1 of the 23 I checked mapped. So I guess this must be bigger in this area. Again though, not sure the quality of the maps yet. But I will be doing my own for my favorite 3-4 courses so that it has my own points.
Software and Course Creation:
The software installed just fine and is simple to figure out. They do have a Newer Beta version of the software on their site, it has a better system to create your own sites, however it lacks some of the functionality of the old software, but contain a better course creator. So I simply installed both versions and use the one to create courses and the other to sync. You could do the same for the course creation by simply going to the site. I would assume once it is out of Beta, it may run resident on your PC. One little bug I noticed the one time I tried. It will sync courses, as well as backup to a separate directory. On the Backup, it at least appeared the one time I tried that it would not overwrite existing courses in the backup directory. I had to delete on the PC and then backup my modifications.
The creation process is quite simple. You either enter the Scorecard info, or download it from the site if you are a member. If you know what you plan to map on the course you simply go in and plug in the names for the 8 additional points. You save this to the PC, then load it onto the GPS. All the backups and file storage are on your PC. You are permitted 5 text characters for each point and they provide an abbreviation list that is consistent with the courses you download or you can type your own. This can also be done directly on the unit at the course, but is easier for me on the PC. If you pay attention to how the points display, you can set it up so all the left points are on the left of the screen and all the right are on the right, although blanks will change this, so you need to put none in if you do this.
Mapping course:
As mentioned, you can do the points on the PC, or on the unit. I did it on the PC. To map you just tell it you wish to map the course. Select the course based on name. Go to the first hole. You can then scroll to any point you have entered or enter one from a digital keypad or saved list of Abbreviations. Simply enter register and it takes about 2-5 seconds to log the point. Repeat for all 8 points as well as front back and center of green and hit save for that hole. Go to next hole and repeat. Actually it is simpler to use than I expected.
Unit information:
When I got this, it took a little tinkering to get it working to my liking. I have owned numerous GPS systems, and have two others right now. Although this is my first golf one. Out of the box, I popped in the batteries, turned it on and started playing around. Though I would go out and initialize it to my area. At first I was slightly disgusted at the time it took to initialize until I figure a few things out. At this time it is 20* outside and 20mph winds. I'm standing in my front yard freezing my @$$ off, which added to the aggravation. Anyways, I turn it on the satellite screen comes up. With most GPS's, you can go about your business why it initializes. I start playing around with it. After a couple minutes the thing is still not initialized, I've had enough of the cold and go back inside. I put it on the satellite screen and stick it in the window. 20 minutes pass and I am pissed, no initialization. I know, I am indoors, but my other GPS's will initialize from a window. It has only found 1-2 satellites, and best I can tell it looks like an old serial scan, only tracking 1 at a time and about 20-30 seconds in between satelittes, where common units track up to 12. I am convinced the thing is likely going back for refund. I figure read the book, play around and deal with it in the morning. I did not find anything in the manual, but figured I would play with the unit. I turn it on and notice it is scanning each satellite at 1 second interval. I thought this was funny, and maybe it needed to initialize prior to playing. Turned it off, went back out, turned it on, shivered for about 30-45 seconds and it was initialized. All was well, it was tracking all the satellites at once, as a parallel GPS will do 12 at a time, It had a lock on 7. Knowing a little about it, you require 3 for Triangulating location and 4 if you require elevation.
Yesterday I played around a little. Going in I saw review of a couple things. The most common that the accuracy would vary if you set at a point to long, maybe up to 15 yards. The numbers bounce around. Mine did this, and actually logging points in my yard they were off by 5-15 yards. Hardly good for a GPS. Although, I had read the manual the night before and was somewhat convinced from the reviews I read, the people needed to play with the settings. There is a WAAS control, which is common in the US to help out. Once I disabled this in the settings and logged points it was listing everything to within 1 yard when I stood at the point I logged, moved, and came back. I am not sure that 0 was an option. Close enough for government work, close enough for me. The Stabilization's with slow the counting and jumping of numbers. I doubt I will use this. I am also convinced the people who reviewed this about the jumping needed to disable the WAAS. They took the initial number. Knowing a GPS tracks every couple seconds, they were likely better taking the last number as it caught up after a few seconds. I put two rechargeable batteries in, have used it for a couple hours and it is still at 100%. Make sure to turn the battery setting to rechargeable if that is what you are using. Originally read 53% prior to doing so.
It has a backlight that can be toggled from the power button. Strangely, you cannot toggle the back light from the initial satellite screen, but can do so from any other point. The belt clip does seem cheap as I heard, but I got 5 extras. It will do yards or meters. It has a Trickle GPS mode, I assume to save batteries, but it really didn't explain too much on this. One important thing. It sets up as a com port device on USB. This is never touched on in the manual, outside of saying it takes several minutes to load a course. It was extremely slow to my liking for how USB will operate. After thinking about this, I checked the baud rate on the port, which defaulted to 9600 as I expected. I bumped this up to 128,000 and it worked more closely to how a USB port should operate, but still slow for the size of the file. Certainly acceptable for how few times you will likely transfer files. They may be worried the data will not transfer completely accurate at that speed, although I would doubt this to be an issue from my experience.
Again, I am getting 4" or more of snow today, so I likely won't play around with it too much until tomorrow or the weekend. At which time I will likely join the site and see how thorough the courses are set up from the site. It will likely be the end of March before I can make it on the course. In the mean time I will kind of test it out compared to my Range Finder, although it will likely be a month before I can provide a real accurate review of the device.
Just based on my familiarity with GPS systems, ease of use, and the fact you can easily add and edit your own points and store on PC, I am inclined to believe this is a keeper. Time will tell.