Golf Accessories for Less

Reviews

I GOT THE CALLAWAY UPRO 3 WEEKS NOW AND I WENT FROM A 13 DOWN TO 11. I LOVE IN PRO MODE. THE BEST BY FAR ON THE MARKET!

I am the son-in-law of someone who got this as a gift. I was called in to help set this up because he was having issues. There is a typo in the user guide. The first time setup URL that is required for this to work is not what is published in the user guide and what is published online on the PDF manual. If your are on the product team at the company who makes this for Callaway, save the son-in-laws of the world some hassle and have the URL that is published in the user guide redirect to the correct page. At least 3 of my father in laws buddies have returned this product and he would too had I not provided customer service for you.

I was tired of the annual fees for the SkyCaddie, so I ponied up and purchased the new Callaway uPro. I was really interested in the overhead satellite views. Yes, you have to pay extra for the satellite images, but it was only once (per course) and it was yours forever. Before you buy - ensure ALL the courses you're interested in are available now! Two courses I play regularly are not available in ProMode (overhead view) and one isn't even available in Basic Mode. I've emailed the Tech Support team repeatedly, asking why they advertise they add "a thousand" courses every month, yet these haven't been added. It's been more than six months and I'm still waiting... The response from Tech Support was that they purchase the satellite imagery and it wasn't available for these courses. These aren't local muni courses, the first course are designed by Jim Engh (Four Mile Ranch) and was voted as a Top 100 New Courses in 2008 (I believe) in Golf Digest and the other is Sumo Golf Village, done by Gary Player. Ok, but let's assume your local course is available - how's it do?!? My home course has 36 holes on it. One of the courses is pretty accurate. The other is off on several holes, some as much as 12-14 yards. That's a huge difference. I took the time to record several rounds, GPS vs Yardage Markers and sent them to Callaway's uPro Customer Service. A few weeks later, I received an email saying it was being forwarded to the Mapping Department...well, another two weeks have come and gone - no reply/response from the Mapping folks. I've read people marveling about the accuracy of this device, so I took it to the local muni course. Most holes were accurate, but two of the 18 holes were off by 10+ yards. I thought about emailing Callaway, but what's the point? They don't respond. So - yesterday, I put my Callaway uPro on E-bay to get rid of it. Ironically enough, during a golf tournament, I won the Callaway uPro Go. I haven't even taken it out of the box. It'll be going on E-Bay as well. I'm switching back to my SkyCaddie and paying the annual fee. The whole reason I bought a GPS is because I didn't want to guess about distances, but the "advanced" GPS capabilities of these units - has me doing exactly that. I find myself walking to the 200 or 150 yard makers, seeing what the GPS says, then doing the math to add/subtract the yardage and do it again when I'm at my ball. Nonsense if you ask me. I also had the issue about my data card becoming corrupt after a failed download. Customer support was quick to let me know my device was out of warranty. Fortunately, I figured it out myself. One final note - I was thrilled with the overhead view of the course, with real satellite imagery. Very cool..but to be honest, after a few times - I don't use it. It's more of a novelty. I just want to know how far it is to the bunker or to carry it, or front/middle/back of the green. When you have the Pro Mode for a course, you can do the typical "how far to the flag" with the cross hairs, but it's a clunky interface. I preferred the SkyCaddie version better. In summary, I'm disappointed with the inaccuracy of the uPro. The Customer Support had a bit of an attitude when I contacted them. When you spend almost $400 for a gadget like this, I expect better. I would have expected this type of service from the Swammi Golf GPS for $99.

Not having used this gps for an extended time, as of now it is the best one i have had. Having a sight problem it also has and enlargement for word usage. It seems to be very accurate of the courses i have played.

Callaway uPro was an upgrade from the Nikon laser rangefinder I've used for four years. The Nikon proved to be helpful and was a good value but I wanted the advanced features offered by a GPS unit. After playing a few rounds with uPro I'm very pleased with its functionality. Only one problem, which I'll discuss later, kept me from giving it 5 stars. I downloaded the User Manual while waiting for the unit to arrive and was familiar with the unit before I opened the box. Initial setup was easy, although I had to do a couple extra steps as mentioned in the manual to get started in Vista. Downloaded my home course using the free credits. Plan to buy 20 courses worth of credits and have a list of 10 I'll be downloading soon. The built-in video was of limited value since I'd already read the manual. But being able to preview my home course in the comfort of my recliner certainly made things easier when I played my first actual round. I turned down the backlight to 30%, left auto hole change with prompt, and eventually settled on "normal" power save. I turned off flyover and would most likely only use it to preview a new course. I think during play it will take too much time. Basic Mode is adequate for at least half my playing time, especially on my home course. I love the Mark function to measure shot length and it's already helping me with club selection. Switching to Pro mode is quick and easy. Very useful when dealing with blind shots or holes with a lot of hazards. Measure works great and takes the guesswork out of layups. Not having doubts about exactly how far to hit on a layup makes a good swing a lot easier. Knowing the exact distance to front, middle and back helps greatly. My playing partners have commented on how much closer I'm hitting to pins already. Although our course was lasered several years ago, I've found a couple 150 stakes are off by nearly 5 yards. No wonder I was always short when relying on them. Having played many rounds with people using other GPS brands, I was concerned about time to get an accurate yardage. With uPro I can wake it from sleep mode when I reach my ball and have a yardage within 5 seconds. And the final yardage will not be more than 2 yards different than the first reading. I've seen other brands take nearly 30 seconds to stabilize. That's annoying and disrupts my playing tempo. Huge plus to uPro for its speed. I mentioned one problem. The first time out I played 9 practice holes to get used to the unit. I had a match scheduled that afternoon and planned to use uPro. To conserve power I shut it down for 50 minutes. When I powered back up it had no courses in memory. Had to play the match without uPro and was not happy. Once home I called tech support. They warn you it could take 15 minutes to get an available tech rep. I waited about 10 minutes. But he was patient and talked me through the procedure to reset memory. It's a multi step procedure which involves removing and installing the battery a couple times and the memory chip, but it worked. Could be done at the club but would be annoying if it were a frequent problem. So far I haven't had another incident, but that is why I didn't give it a 5 star rating. Overall I'm delighted with uPro. I would recommend it a friend.

Reviews

Bought the Callaway UPro Go GPS from Amazon about a month ago. Used it at my home course a couple of times and it worked great. Went to use it this weekend and it would not turn on even though the battery was fully charged. Called Amazon and they sent me a UPS return label via email and sent out a new unit right away. Hopefully the first one was defective and this new one will not have the same problem.

I LIKE IT. I AM A SENIOR CITIZEN AND THE GREEN MODE IS TOO HARD TO SEE WITHOUT READING GLASSES,BUT THE DISTANCE MODE IT EXCELLENT THE YARDAGES ARE VERY EASY TO READ AND ARE VERY ACCURATE.

The uprogo gps does everything it advertises and does it well. It met all of my expectations. I called tech support and had to wait a few minutes to get someone, but they answered all my questions and were thorough. I also asked to have a course that I play which was not listed to be mapped. Within two weeks, the course was entered in their list and although it was not yet mapped, it is in the que. Also the tech support call center was a US based call center with people that speak english. After 5 hours in a Microsoft Indian call center recently, this is a major determinant in any product that I purchase in the future. Overall, this is a 5 star product.

This is my 2nd golf GPS. My first was the Golf Guru 002 which I thought was a pretty good unit. After using the uPro Go for one round, I'm very happy I've moved on. I am a 5-handicap so accurate, timely information is very important to me. First off, I refuse to pay an annual subscription for a sky caddie and would never pay for individual courses (uPro Regular) -- I play too many different courses and I like to play in different states too. I also believe in having as much information as possible as long as it is easy to get to while playing. I do see the benefit of having full hole mappings (garmin G5, etc), especially on courses that are new to me. That being said, I'm not willing to pay double for that little extra bit of info. I also want a unit to be as small as possible (cell phone size is as big as I'm interested in) because I like to keep the unit in my back pocket. The uPro Go has a great value proposition since it is pretty inexpensive (I paid $150 with Go-mode activated post rebate) and it's pretty feature rich for the $$$. I love Go-mode -- the right mix of important info and the flexibility to move the pin to the right spot. The graphics are great. The shape of the green and traps around the green make the info worthwhile. My previous golf GPS (Guru 002) had Intelligreen but the graphics were so weak that putting the pin in the proper spot was not possible. I also never trusted the accuracy of the Guru's reading to the pin since I would often measure the distance to the pin w/my Bushnell laser rangefinder and find the Guru off by 5-10 yards. Therefore, I had to carry my Rangefinder in addition to the GPS for pin-distance info. I cross referenced the uPro Go on most holes today and found it's yardages to be spot on w/my laser. It could just be that the course I played today was mapped better than the Guru's so I'll have to play a few others with the laser/GPS combo as well before I leave the laser in my trunk. Here are my pros/cons so far: Pros - Size is awesome -- actually smaller than my HTC Hero Cell phone - Screen is great -- very readable on the course (not sure why anyone is having issues) - Go Mode -- fantastic. I think it's a very average GPS without Go Mode. Well worth the $50. - Accuracy is great so far - Course availability here in Colorado is great - I couldn't find any courses that I play that aren't already mapped. - Cost is very reasonable - Pretty intuitive interface -- easy to go from Hazard Mode to Go-mode. - Was a little tricky the first time I wanted to load the course I played ... - Auto hole advance works most of the time - Unit build quality seems very solid - Very easy to mark your shots for distance tracking - I like the joystick -- not sure why others dislike - Syncs easily with my Macbook Pro (Snow leopard) Cons - Would like to see scorekeeping on the unit - Would like a hole view option - Hazard info a little spotty (front/back of the trap/water is open to interpretation as to where they mapped it) - Battery life may be iffy (not sure if I can get two full rounds -- had 40% left after one round) - When you move the pin on the green in Go-mode, the other info around the green disappears (Why ??) All-in-all, I'm happy with my purchase so far. Hopefully, Callaway will add some more useful features in the future. I'm not sure why Callaway doesn't just add $50 to the price tag and sell it with Go-Mode already activated (or just ditch the rebate). Without Go-Mode, the unit is similar in technology to devices that are 3+ years old. I'll try to update my review in a couple months after I've had more experience with the unit and played more courses.

Great little GPS. I have friends with Golf Buddies and Sky Caddies. Ranges of all of these are within a yard. The size is great, fits easily in a pocket. No problem reading in the sun. Sometimes it seems to struggle locking into a reading. My friends with Golf Buddies have the same problem. My friend with a Sky Caddy claims he doesn't. But for the cost savings and ease of use (all courses are preloaded) I can put up with a slight problem.