Golf Buddy Voice Review
Golf Buddy Voice GPS has the honor of being the first golf GPS device on the market, which displays the distances as well as speak them to the user. It’s shape is similar to that of iPod Nano, but its size is very small. It measures 1.7 inches x 1.7 inches and weighs only 1 oz. You don’t have to pay for future course updates. The Voice comes with more than 35,000 courses. Go ahead and read this GolfBuddy Voice GPS review for more.
Design: 6/10
Though small, the device has a beautiful display screen to show information, which is something other devices doesn’t offer. The gadget has two primary screens, namely Green View and Hole View. You can get the distances as long as you are within about 10 yards of the green edge, give or take.
The gadget is equipped with a clip so you can attach it to the brim of your shirt, belt or cap. To make the device read the distance aloud, you just need to push a button. By default, it will show the distance to the center of the screen. However, if you hold the main button, you will see the distances to both the near and far points.
Usability : 6/10
The GolfBuddy Voice is pretty easy to use since it comes with 5 buttons. On the front, you have the main button. On the left side of the device, you have buttons for power and position mark. On the right side, you have the selection/volume buttons.
Since the device has a clip, you can attach it to your cap, belt or shirt with ease. The device looks thick when attached to the cap. For charging, you have a USB cable port on the upper right corner. The same USB cable is used in order to upgrade firmware and update courses. On the back of the gadget, you have the speaker and the clip.
Before a round, you just need to switch the Voice on. As soon as the power button is pressed, the Voice will acquire satellites and locate the closest course. If the device fails to get a satellite or a golf course, you won’t be able to use it.
Compared with the GolfBuddy Platinum, this gadget can kick off a round a bit faster. You will get a notification when the gadget has found a course. Once you are at the tree box, you will see the hole and distance stats on the gadget screen.
The built-in rechargeable battery of the device gives you up to 9 hours of usage time, which is reasonably accurate. You can enjoy a few rounds before connecting your device for recharging. On public courses, however, 9 hours are not enough to complete two rounds.
Performance: 7/10
As far as performance goes, the device is great. The GolfBuddy Voice speaks out loud the distance to the centre, the hole being played, shot distances and the near and far edges.
As long as you are within 4 years, the device will give you accurate information. But we found it hard to verify distances to the “near” and “far” points of the green because the gadget fails to provide distances once the player get to the green edge, which is about 10 yards away from that edge of green.
While using GolfBuddy voice and the GolfBuddy Platinum, we noticed that there was a yardage. We tested the devices in the same round, so there was no chance of mistake. We concluded that the GolfBuddy is a little bit less accurate than the Platinum. For the most part, we noticed that GolfBuddy consumes about 60 seconds to show an accurate reading. Our best guess is that GolfBuddy makes use of the same course maps in both the devices. Then why is it that the two devices show different yardage readings? Probably the difference is because of the hardware difference. In other words, both of the device have different hardware.
Value: 6/10
While the device has a very low price tag compared with other GPS device, it still missed a lot of important features. There are many relatively inexpensive devices out there providing hazard data, but this one excludes this feature. Apart from this, the device doesn’t have functions offered by more expensive devices. There is only one thing that can make you go for GolfBuddy Voice GPS: it is the voice capability of the gadget. If you don’t like the voice feature of the device, you will probably won’t buy it.
To cut a long story short, the display features the par, hole and green graphic. But it still is not worth it. The major advantage of a voice-supported golf GPS device is to make sure you don’t have to look at the screen over and over again, but if you own a voice-enabled device and you still have to look at the device for information, you will probably want to go for another device, such as a quality watch. Watches have better display units and are small in size. Apart from this, watches offer hazard information and other functions not included in the GolfBuddy. But if you really like the voice-capability of the device, you can go for it.