If you do a search on my prior reviews, you will see that I have owned and/or tried several different golf GPS devices, and continually am searching for the perfect device. For the most part, nothing has touched my old Callaway MX (the original), until the batteries (even the replacement ones) would not hold a charge. The new MX held promise but didn't work for me well enough and it was returned after a round, leaving me for the past two seasons or so with the Garmin G.
Over time, I came to wonder about the benefits of having distance on my wrist and giving up some of the other features. Make no mistake, there are pluses and minuses with the G2 Approach, and it just depends on what is most important to you, and what you're willing to live without. First, on to the details.
In the Box: In the box comes the G2 watch, and very short quick start guide in like 500 languages and the charger clip. Like everybody else, I threw the box aside and proceeded to figure it out on my own. Charged in a few hours, no problem. The clip charger is not ideal, because it's kind of bulky (though light), but it's not that big of a deal. The clip is attached to USB, so you can charge it off your laptop, or from your little Apple USB charger box. Charges pretty quickly.
The Fit: I wear a larger heart rate monitor type watch (Suunto), so the Garmin is really no bigger than what I wear every day. The watch band is comfortable, and I didn't have to synch it too tight. Overall, I don't even notice it when I play, same thing as every day, so the fit is a plus.
The Display: I looked at the G3, because who doesn't want more pixels right? Well I said no to the extra $100 because I read the movable touch screen didn't work very well, and I could not see how it would work well, with the limited space on the face. The pixels are fine. I had no problem seeing the distances in the sun or the shade and found the resolution just fine.
Ease of Use: This is where some of the tradeoffs come in. On my Garmin G6 handled, I of course could get easy distance to any particular piece of junk to carry or to any bunker as well as to any layup distance. On the G6 is is a simple matter of moving the cursor on the touch screen with my finger and it calculates distances to there and from there to the flag, and it was easy to pull the cursor to the red, white and blue lines to get layup distances to 100, 150 and 200. Also, the G6 gives me the ability to move the flag on the green to the particular hole location--all of which are nice.
Now, on the G2, you can get distance to doglegs, and layups to 100, 150, 200, which is a fine amount of data to have (more than I really need) and the closest thing to a "complaint" I have about doing so on the G2 approach is the way you have to work the buttons to do it. Having said that, it's a minor complaint because the FAR FAR biggest advantage of the G2 is having your distances with you all the time--and I mean ALL THE TIME. There is no wake up function to wake the watch up from a sleep, no digging out the device from your pocket or sitting on the buttons my mistake and having it turn itself off or advance you to other screens without your knowledge. The G2 simply switches holes (advances holes) automatically for you when you get near the tee box and it's flawless. There's no digging out the device and having to go back a few holes and if your course starts you on the back side instead of the front, it just knows it. A huge plus. You just look at your wrist no matter where you are, and your distances to the front, center and back of the greens are just there in easy to read format. In my view, the proliferation of GPS and laser devices have kind of over complicated things because rather than getting a distance to the front, center and back, we too often get precise distances to the very spot of the flag (whether from GPS like the G6 or a laser), and we pull a club to that distance without factoring in the bounce and roll. Anyway, the front, center and back view on the G2 is great, and I wouldn't even want a scrollable or movable flag any more.
On to the minor complaint: There are a lot of button presses here. More than there should be. You hold the button to start a round. No worries there. To move from "hole view" to "layup" view, you have to hit a button again, but there is no "back key" and there should have been. Similarly, to score your round--and it only scores a single player's scores so you lose the score to add up scores for your pals, you have to press AND hold the OK button, scroll a menu of a few items to reach "SCORECARD," then hit the OK button again, which brings you to the hole you are on, and then you have to hit OK again to confirm you are entering the score on the right hole, press the up or down arrows to enter your score, press OK again, and then press AND hold the OK button until the menu comes up so you can hit CANCEL. You get used to it, but I have to say that without the ability to enter the entire foursome's scores, having the ability to enter scores on the watch loses some of its utility. True you can plug it into your computer and download your scorecard, and maybe that's valuable for you. After a few rounds, I decided to ditch scoring on this device and purchased a scorecard holder and went back to paper and pencil. Similarly, getting the "layup" distance requires a few button clicks too. You have to hit and hold the OK button, and then it brings you to 150 and 200 layup distances; well, I like to layup inside of 100 so bringing up the layup to 100 also involves hitting the up or down arrow key, and I'm not really sure how to get it back to the hole view when I am done.
All the G2 needs is a dedicated scorecard button (bringing up the scorecard on a single button) and a back key that would take you to wherever you were before you hit the menus. If it did that, it would be nearly perfect.
Satellite Acquisition: The G2 is far faster to acquire and hold the satellites than my G6, the Callaway MX Pro, the Callaway MX. Fast and no issues. Found my course right away too.
Battery Life. Rated at 3 weeks for watch only and 8 hours for GPS. It claims to have a power save feature, but I couldn't see how to enable it and wouldn't want to, because having the distances without having to push a button to wake the device was partly why I wanted it. In GPS mode, however, I was less than 50 percent down after a 4.5 hour round, so getting 36 out of this might be tough. I don't play more than 18 too frequently, so this shouldn't be too much of an issue for me.
Pluses: Small, lightweight, easy to read, and always on and have distances right there with you without having to wake the device or advance holes. Price is reasonable for what you get.
Minuses: You trade some of the things you may like, such as distance to any bunker, distance to carries over trouble, and a movable flag to position flag on the greens. A few non-intuitive or repetitive button presses especially if you are entering scores. Battery life bears watching if you frequently play 36 a day.
Net Summary: I am happy with this purchase, because I was ready to give up a movable flag and distances to bunker and other hazards in exchange for always having the numbers available without having to dig a device out of my pocket or mistakenly hitting buttons when it was in my pocket. It is worth it to me, because I really liked having my distances without any effort (marking your drives is exceedingly easy too). Depends upon what you are looking for and what you are willing to give up. I no longer need to see a birds eye view of the holes (and could get that off the paper score card anyway), and am "going back to basics" just having a number to the front, center, and back. It is helping my game not to get too precise distances to hole locations anyway, and causing me to think about whether I want to land it short or long. It's worth a look.
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