Shopping CartGarmin Approach G5 Touchscreen Golf GPS (Old Version)
date : January 12th, 2012Golf Rangefinder
Review : 3 Reviews
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List Price : $ 499.99
Price Now : $ 269.95
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Tags : Approach, Garmin, Golf, touchscreen, Version
Features For Garmin Approach G5 Touchscreen Golf GPS (Old Version)
- Rugged, waterproof golf GPS unit with 3-inch sunlight-readable touschreen display
- Preloaded U.S. course maps, including fairways, hazards, and greens
- No annual fee; new maps available for download from Garmin.com
- Measure shot distance with highly sensitive readings to eliminate guesswork from your game
- Digital scorecard for up to four players; save and review the scores on your computer at home
Description For Garmin Approach G5 Touchscreen Golf GPS (Old Version)
Give your game a boost of confidence with Garmin’s Approach G5, a rugged, waterproof, touchscreen golf GPS packed with thousands of pre-loaded golf course maps. Approach uses a high-sensitivity GPS receiver to measure individual shot distances and show the exact yardage to fairways, hazards, and greens. Give your golf game a boost of confidence with the Approach G5. Eliminate guesswork from your game by keeping score digitally, getting accurate yardage readings, and more. (Click images to enlarge.) Built for Golfers
Weighing in at just 6.8 ounces with batteries and boasting a transflective color 3-inch touchscreen, the Approach is your featherweight fairway guide regardless of the lighting conditions. IPX7 waterproofing means that the device can withstand accidental immersion as well–but thankfully, you’ll be avoiding water hazards, of course. Eliminate the Guesswork
The Approach displays and updates your exact position on stunningly detailed, prel
List Price: $ 499.99
Price: $ 269.95
Garmin G5 vs Callaway uPro vs SkyCaddie SG3,
I’ve owned a SkyCaddie SG3 for some time and, weary of its annual fees, glacial operating speed, and pedestrian display, I decided to go color. I purchased the Garmin Approach G5, but its display is very difficult to see in normal outdoor conditions. So I also purchased the Callaway uPro. I played an entire round on my home course, with all three GPS units mounted on the cart. My findings:
Build quality: All three units are rugged, with great fit-and-finish. The Garmin gets the nod, because it’s waterproof. The Callaway is water-resistant, and you can purchase a watertight skin for an outrageous $24.99 to protect it further. The SkyCaddie is not recommended for use in the rain.
Size: The Callaway uPro is the smallest and thinnest, about the size of an LG Chocolate phone. The SG3 is similar height and width to the uPro, but much thicker and heavier. The biggest of all is the Garmin, the size of an iPhone and four times as thick. It’s wide, heavy, and not good for the pocket.
Accuracy: The three units properly mapped my home course, agreeing on nearly all distances (within 6 yards of each other) and hazards.
GPS acquisition: The old-technology SG3 takes forever to acquire GPS, sometimes more than five minutes. Both the Garmin and the uPro acquire satellites almost instantly. The uPro has technology that, once it locks onto satellites, it really keeps them. After locking on, I took the unit indoors, and even put it in my pants pocket. It never had to re-acquire. Advantage: uPro.
Getting courses: The Garmin wins handily. All 10,000+ available courses come preloaded in its 1GB memory. No annual fees, no paid memberships. The Garmin Approach G5 offered every course I cared to search. Of course, your mileage may vary.
To make the most of your SkyCaddie, you need to pay for an annual membership on their website, and download courses individually. Some SkyCaddie memberships allow you to download as many courses as you want from all over the world…however, the unit’s paltry memory will only hold a few at a time. The uPro also requires that you sign up on their website (no annual memberships, though). With the uPro, Basic Mode (an alphanumeric color screen that resembles that of a SkyCaddie) is free for unlimited courses. For Pro Mode (the nifty aerial photography view of each course) you pay for only the courses you wish to play, a la carte. Your first Pro Mode course is free.
Information: All units show distances to the front/middle/back of greens. The SG3 also shows hazards on the same screen, but it doesn’t give you hazard carry distances, like the uPro does. The Garmin shows the entire hole, including hazards. But showing the entire hole means that the illustrations of hazards are tiny, as is the accompanying yardage text. Coupled with the Garmin’s dim display, it’s pretty useless. Curiously, the Garmin apparently doesn’t consider trees to be obstacles, so they’re not represented at all on the graphical display. The uPro (in Pro Mode) shows every tree and hazard – in fact, the entire hole, as photographed from satellite. It’s like viewing my actual course (including my house!) from above. There’s absolutely nothing like it.
On the home screen, both the SG3 and the uPro also give you the time of day, battery strength, and GPS signal strength. The Garmin gives you none of the above. You need to briefly press the power button to see the time. It also shows a battery icon, but that never moved during my round.
Battery: The Garmin and SG3 both take AA batteries, whether alkaline, NiMh rechargeable, or lithium ion. With any AA type, both units easily complete at least two rounds. The uPro uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Unlike SkyCaddie models that use internal lithium ion batteries, which are a real horror show to replace (SkyCaddie recommends you send the unit back), the Callaway uPro battery easily drops in. Callaway says it takes three hours to charge, but it didn’t take me anywhere near that long. UPro battery life is 6-12 hours, depending on how bright you set the display’s backlight. With my display settings (see Display, below), I easily completed a round with plenty to spare. As far as battery preferences go: For some, constantly recharging and changing out AAs is a grind. For others, recharging (and eventually, re-purchasing) internal lithium-ion batteries ($27 for the uPro) is just as bad, especially considering that the battery can leave you high and dry mid-round if you forget to charge it the night before. To each his own.
Display: The SG3 is monochrome, so it doesn’t stand a chance. Its display is dim and boring, but it does give you a button on the side for a backlight. The screen sizes on the SG3 and uPro are nearly identical. The Garmin’s touchscreen display is nearly iPhone-big, and drop-dead gorgeous…when you’re at home. Take it outside, and it washes…
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|First impressions: Amazing!,
It’s Sunday night as I type this review. I have had my Garmin a total of three days now. It arrived on Friday, so I put in batteries, connected it to my PC, downloaded the OS upgrades and most current course file (about a 76MB file). I played with the preview function, using it to check my local courses, and also checked out Warwick Hills, where Tiger was storming back on day 2 of the Buick Open. Very cool being able to preview 1000s of courses across the country!
Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and took it out to a course I had never visited before to see just how well this investment would pay off. Looking at the top-down, color view of every hole from tee to green, I knew everything I needed to know to reach the green in regulation–it didn’t matter that I hadn’t been here before.
On a par 5 with a sharp left dogleg, I used the Garmin to determine the distance to the middle of the left bend. I touched the screen and pinpointed a spot 190 yds to the center of the fairway, with bunkers on the left. I grabbed my 3I hybrid and let ‘er rip. Perfect shot! Right in the center of the bend, and a straight shot at the green 250 yds away. A 3W got me to about 50 yds, and then a (lucky) little pitch and I was up and down for birdie!
A few holes later, the Garmin showed me a par 4 that goes out straight and level for about 200 yds. There the fairway ends and it’s about 100 yds up a hill to the right with about 20 yds elevation difference to the green. Again, I grabbed my 3I hybrid and whacked the ball about 190 yds just short of the fairway’s end. Then I grabbed my PW and knocked the ball up the hill to the elevated green and 2-putted for par. Sweet!
Eventually, it’s the 18th hole (par 4) and the grand finale–there’s water on the right and fronting the green, with bunkers on the left of the fairway and behind the green. The center of the green itself is about 260 yards off, and while the other 3 golfers in my foursome decide to break out their drivers and go for it, I used the Garmin to determine the best lay up point–about 180 yds to the widest part of the fairway past the water. I grabbed my 4I hybrid, plopped the ball perfectly in the fairway, and I had an easy wedge shot to the green to par the hole, while two of my compadres were flailing away in the bunkers, and the other was digging his ball out of the deep rough beyond and left of the green (I was willing to share my Garmin with them, but they’d all played the course before and “knew” what to do!).
Those are the three “highlight” holes of my first round at this course. The Garmin does everything but hit the ball–that part is still left for me to do, and, unfortunately, I don’t always hit the ball so perfectly, or there would have been more highlights!
Nonetheless, the Garmin was the perfect aide for course management, and I know it saved me several strokes. Even though I had never visited this course before, each time I walked up to the tee box I was filled with confidence because I knew exactly what club to use and where to aim. I could see the shape and depth of every green, and I knew where my margin of error was when making my approach.
Sunday morning, I got up early again and took the Garmin out to a course I have visited several times before. Unfortunately for me, my shots were rather inconsistent, to say the least, and I shot a miserable round. However, that was entirely my fault–the Garmin was still an excellent guide throughout. On the rare occasion I did hit my shot straight and true, my distances perfectly coincided with what the Garmin was telling me. And again, each time I made an approach shot, I knew the depth of green and the locations of the hazards, and whether I should err long or short, left or right.
Additionally, I should mention that I’ve had a competitor’s golf GPSR for a couple years now. It’s been adequate for the job and was half the initial purchase price of the Garmin, but it was severely lacking in many ways because it:
– required an annual subscription to download courses;
– only held 10 courses in memory at a time, so I would have to connect to my computer and download courses if venturing out of my “home” area;
– only showed distances to a handful of landmarks, e.g. bunker, end-of-fairway, water hazard, etc.;
– had a monochrome LCD;
– was NOT a Garmin (I admit, I have a pro-Garmin bias, as I’ve had two of their hand-held GPSRs and an in-car unit, all of which I’ve been impressed and satisfied with)!
On the flip side, the Garmin:
– does NOT require a subscription;
– provides a touch screen (no confusing manual buttons that do different functions at different times);
– holds THOUSANDS of courses across the US;
– shows the ENTIRE hole from tee to green with bunkers, hazards, and distances clearly…
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|Awesome increase in enjoyment of Golf game,
My son and I used this on a local course for the first time and it performed great. No more looking for markers or taking the time to walk off an estimate (er, OK – especially when I’m not in the fairway). We have some large greens thankfully and being able to simply move the flag on the device for a much more accurate reading is super. Also, those few great drives I had – the G5 made it simple to get the exact yardage (did not break any records though). Only 1 of my 7 (regular home area) courses is not programmed in yet but I see it’s on schedule in the next update. If yours isn’t, simply let Garmin know like I did. Great unit, now if only my golf got better
Update note: Today (4/26) I downloaded Garmins latest course database to the device and now all my courses are available.
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