gps

[gasfreak]

Is there any of the gps systems that you dont have to pay the yearly subscription

[alomar123]

Onpar, but if you live out in the boon docks, they might not have your course, so you would have to request it.

[Scott_K]

Friend of mine has a sonocaddie v300. I think he paid around $300 for it. This thing rolls around in the cart a lot and has taken a beating.

[DannyG5]

Skycaddie is only 30 bucks a month and it is by far the best gps unit i have used. If you are willing to dish out $30 a year get a skycaddie!!

[zeg]

Callaway uPro has free courses (for the yardages only, maps are a fee per map, I think about $10 each if you only buy a few, cheaper if you buy a ton at once). Garmin's offerings all have free courses. Don't have any experience with either (or any golf GPS) so I can't vouch for their course coverage...

[BT100]

Golf Buddy is FREE once you buy it.

[grizfan]

Several options available. I have the Callaway uPro which offers free downloads of standard courses. They have a feature called pro-mode which offers a more sophisticated view of each hole that costs extra (but, the more you buy, the lower the unit price). The pro-mode is entirely optional, though, and the normal mode gives you all the basic measurements. Garmin, Sonocaddy and Golf Buddy also have units with no annual fee. Others, such as the Bushnell Neo have an annual fee, but once you've downloaded a course, you don't need to renew the fee to keep it.

[assassin307]

  BT100 said:

Golf Buddy is FREE once you buy it.

I just bought the Golf Buddy. No fees and works great. I paid about $200 for it.

[erock9174]

The Izzo Swami is a bare bones unit that works great for me.
Its $79 and is $9.99 to activate. You can store 10 courses at a time. if you need to change the 10 courses after a year then you have to pay the $9.99 again but it's well worth it. If you dont plan on changing the courses then you dont have to pay the $9.99 ever again.
What I liked about the Izzo was virtually every course I play was in their list.

I researched the Calloway units but their course library was much to be desired and several courses I played had many request and were still not mapped.
That scared me off.

[gasfreak]

I was wondering about the Izzo and golf buddy so thanks for the good info guys

[erock9174]

i wrote a pretty lengthy review on the swami on these forums. do a search for izzo swami and look for my screen name on there

also there is a good review on youtube where a guy did an on course review if you do a search on there as well.

[hkphooey00]

Here's a site that has a intensive review of each unit and a table comparing the costs.
Table: http://criticalgolf.com/golf-gps-reviews/cost/

Reviews:
http://criticalgolf.com/golf-gps-reviews/

[deserteaglexxx]

Onpar it is great.

[drPheta]

Do you guys have Android, iPhone, or BlackBerry smartphones? Lots of apps will get the job done w/o a subscription. For Android, I'm using SkyDroid. It's a user-based system that is free. Users define the golf course database by mapping couses online (from your/their computer) and then the map is downloaded to the phone. So, really the only limitations are you need a data/reception where you golf, and you have to map (or hope someone else mapped) the course already.

I googled Android golf apps and found SkyDroid to be a great place to start. Haven't needed to switch to any of the other golf apps, yet.

[erock9174]

  hkphooey00 said:

Reviews:

Interesting they say the Izzo had many distance errors in their review. I've used it on a couple different courses thus far and it's always within a yard or 2 of the course markings. Never had a yardage issue yet with it.

[zeg]

  erock9174 said:

Interesting they say the Izzo had many distance errors in their review. I've used it on a couple different courses thus far and it's always within a yard or 2 of the course markings. Never had a yardage issue yet with it.

Probably only an issue on specific courses. On one of the Garmin reviews they mentioned that the other model had some problems that they assumed were due to bad weather or other problems since they didn't see it on both. Could be a similar problem with the Izzo if it's actually positioning problems.

Wish I had the $ to pick up a G3 or G5... trying to decide whether it's worth waiting until I can get one of the spiffy mapping units or just drop the smaller $ for the Neo or similar. Mostly I just want to measure shots, so I don't really care so much about the maps, but I played on a couple courses with nice mapping GPSes in the carts and it was really nice for an unfamiliar course.

[sacm3bill]

  drPheta said:

Do you guys have Android, iPhone, or BlackBerry smartphones? Lots of apps will get the job done w/o a subscription. For Android, I'm using SkyDroid.

How is battery life? Does it last the whole round? Just curious - every other person I've talked to who uses a phone-based app says their phone dies if they play 18.

[drPheta]

I have the HTC Incredible, rooted, and running Android OS 2.2 (FroYo). With the stock 1300mAH battery, I can make it through the round on a full charge... and I'll still have about 25% battery left. Even still, I have a 2150mAH extended battery that I use for golfing, and I know I'm getting through the entire round no problem.

If you're worried about your battery dying, you could intermittently open up the app (just send it to the background by pressing the "home" button). The GPS is only active while the app is running in the foreground. Now, I can't speak for iPhone users, because they don't have true multitasking. These apps may or may not be able to be sent to the background. However, on my Android phone I can simply press the home key, and I know my GPS signal will be muted until I bring up the app again.