New Golf Guru 4

[phil75070]

dmartin,

 

I'm sorry, but the points of interest yardages do not pop up in AerVu. At least they did not come up for me while using it. This was one of my gripes with the AerVu application.

 

I don't have mu Guru 4 yet to talk directly to, but isn't the AerVu view marketed as a "shot planning" tool? Can't you move the crosshairs to any of those points to see what the yardage would be to or to clear the hazard? Granted, on a hole with few hazards or features it might make sense to have all yardages displayed, but since with the Guru you can have up to 30 targets per hole marked wouldn't all those yardages clutter the screen to the point that they would become indiscernible? I can see using the AerVu view to plan my shot, see where the hazards are, then move to the target screen and better understand what targets and distances are being listed there.

[dmartin1976]

dmartin,

 

I'm sorry, but the points of interest yardages do not pop up in AerVu. At least they did not come up for me while using it. This was one of my gripes with the AerVu application.

 

I don't have mu Guru 4 yet to talk directly to, but isn't the AerVu view marketed as a "shot planning" tool? Can't you move the crosshairs to any of those points to see what the yardage would be to or to clear the hazard? Granted, on a hole with few hazards or features it might make sense to have all yardages displayed, but since with the Guru you can have up to 30 targets per hole marked wouldn't all those yardages clutter the screen to the point that they would become indiscernible? I can see using the AerVu view to plan my shot, see where the hazards are, then move to the target screen and better understand what targets and distances are being listed there.

 

you can move the mark around to see the hazards, but you have to drag the mark around, not that it's hard, but it would be easier to just point at a spot and have the mark go there, and I agree that if a hole had 30 targets mapped on it then all the scores would be cluttered, but most of the courses I play don't really have more than say 10 key points or so and also the screen is large but it just doesn't seem that they take full advantage of the size, they could make the maps a little larger or maybe even use a scroll over pop up, you click on the red dot and the yardage pops up, something. That said I do love it, and from all the things I hear golf guru is going to make things work so I am definatly keeping mine, and would recommend it to peopel as well. Over all there are just a few things that I think would enhance the user experience and ease, and larger virtual buttons and taking better advantage of the screen size (which let's face it, compared to most of the units out there this is a BIG screen) would solve all my cons. There are still many more pros IMO.

[cmegolf]

Well i have used the [b]GG4 ,GG2[/b],and [b]UPRO [/b]for the money the GG2 is the one i like and is easy to use

But comparing color units and around the same price the UPRO is deffinetly better than the GG4 if the upro had a bigger screen hands down better than all the Guru's

Great aerial views and hazard ,bunker markings only down side no score card or stats
has pin placement measure feature for layup or for hazards that are not marked

All around good unit for $400 / $100 dollar rebate to go towards the Pro arial down loads
just like Guru regular course down loads are free

[GTakacs]

[b]*******
UPDATE!
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I have not received any kind of contact from the Guru folks for over a week after my initial review and assessment of the Guru 4 unit that I not only posted in this thread but I have sent it to the Guru Folks as well along with some of the issues/concerns that I have found with the unit. Today I have received a full fledged response from their COO, Bob Turner. They have kindly asked me to forward the response to the people who have received my original review. I am posting their response along with every concern/question I have sent them as well as my initial reaction to their response.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: The unit is a Windows CE 5.0 based device sourced from some Chinese manufacturing plant that probably builds the same units for other OEM applications as well. The unit even has a stylus in the back side which is not quite the requirement for a golf GPS. The case has custom GURU4 and OGEO logos embedded in it.
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[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Greg is incorrect in assuming that "some Chinese manufacturing plant…..builds the same units for other OEM applications." The Guru 4 has several hardware and firmware features that are proprietary and only available on the Guru 4. One, very important, example of this is that the Guru 4 uses a much more sensitive, accurate, and expensive GPS receiver and antenna than normal road navigation devices. We do some proprietary things in firmware to further improve accuracy and sensitivity to improve the golf performance of the unit. The Guru 4 also has a sunlight readable display and a much longer battery life than other units.
The unit was designed from the onset as a multi-functional device capable of running a diverse set of programs and in some of those applications a stylus was deemed appropriate to have, it's not just golf anymore.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]Greg is correct in the observation that the Guru 4 is based on Windows CE. We felt that CE is currently providing the best value for the money to our users, but the Golf Guru software is now portable to almost any operating system. We will continue to improve it, and make it available on other platforms.
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I can't attest to the "more sensitive, accurate, and expensive GPS receiver and antenna than normal road navigation devices" claim without popping the unit open. But if I had to take a wild guess, I'd say the Guru 4 uses the same SiRFstarIII chip that many other consumer GPS devices use. It's neither more sensitive nor more accurate than a TomTom GPS. However based on actual testing I can say that this is indeed a very nice GPS chipset that provides high sensitivity and accuracy. More accurate than cheaper Chinese GPS units using cheaper chipsets? Most likely. More accurate than other consumer products using the same chipset? Probably not. The display is certainly readable in bright sunlight and as we have learned from other posters in this thread the battery is a 3500mAh cell which is certainly bigger capacity than some other units might have. As for the battery life, I think the jury is still out whether the theoretical 7 -12.5 hours is acceptable or not.

If I read Mr. Turner's statement correctly, the Guru 4 codebase will indeed be ported over to other platforms eventually. This might be great news for some, but at this point I feel a Golf GPS has such different and stringent hardware requirements (bright LCD that is readable in broad daylight, compact size, long battery life, accurate GPS positioning) than anything out on the market, that the software version might find all other hardware platforms limiting.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: The base app is definitely not written by the guru people. The Music Player, Photo Viewer, Movie Player and "e-book" reader are all apps that come from China. They all support 22 different languages. There is an "Application Guru" which is basically a shortcut menu of some sort that you can set to run any Windows CE 5.0 executable. This was probably tailored for the Golf Guru guys but it's still part of the generic application. There is one for "Golf" one for "Navigation" one for "Sports" and one for "Other". The only one that does anything right now is the "Golf" one. The others will scare the poop out of you if you click them with a super annoying beep and a warning message that you have clicked something that is not implemented.
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[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: The base application is a windows CE shell. Greg is correct that this is not provided by Golf Guru. We will be providing our own, programmable shell in a future release, but this has no effect on the golf functionality. We feel that the ability to run any Windows CE application is a significant advantage for our users because it allows us to provide additional functionality at little or no cost to our users. The MP3 and Video players are good examples of free Windows CE software that make the Guru 4 more useful. There are several examples of Windows CE road navigation software that are available at very reasonable cost. We will be providing a couple of these on the GPS Golf Guru website in the next 30 days. The speaker settings allow for the speaker to be muted. We will adjust the initial defaults to more pleasing values per your feedback.

[/color][color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: The only part that is from the guru people is the software that runs when you click "Golf". It is basically a port of the original Guru G002 software from the Atmel processor used in the original Guru to Windows CE 5.0 with the addition of AverVuew and more stats. The software, the GUI is identical. I'd think porting back the extra stats to the G002 should not be that complicated.

The fact that the software is a straight port from the G002 has its drawbacks.
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[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Greg is incorrect in saying that the Guru 4 software is a straight port of the Guru 2 software as we have added a significant amount of functionality including the AerVu maps, ShotPlan functionality, and advanced stats interface. In addition, we have designed the software to support iPhone like functionality, and future versions will continue to improve on the functionality and UI support. We are committed to continuing to support both our new and our existing customers and we feel that incremental changes to a stable existing system is a much more effective approach than coming out with a completely new interface every 12 months. Microsoft's Vista is a great example of this. We listen carefully to our customer's feedback and we continuously work to improve our functionality and our UI. Where possible, we make these improvements available to our existing users. The reason that we can do this is because we are not rewriting everything for each new platform. You will see platform specific presentations and UI functionality evolve as we continue to improve the Guru platform and application suite.
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I think my statement was accurate: "[b]It is basically a port of the original Guru G002[/b] software from the Atmel processor used in the original Guru to Windows CE 5.0 [b]with the addition of AverVuew and more stats.[/b]" The only significant change is the AverVu maps which also include the ShotPlan feature. The stats are basically 5 more lines of display code and 5 extra variables to store. I think the fact that made it a "significant functionality" is the fact that now the stats don't fit on a single page and they had to implement a paging mechanism to display them. As I have stated earlier, this paging mechanism is horrendous:

[i]I usually keep score, stats and use the mark feature on my G002 all the time but today I got so frustrated with the interface that I didn't. The place where it shows "To Mark:0" actually gets covered by the soft buttons so you constantly hide and show these buttons as they're needed to push the Mark button but then you have to hide it to actually see the Mark display. Totally aggravating. After a while I just said "screw it!"

Entering my score is usually a "right,right,right,down,right,center" with the joystick (triple bogey,3-putt) on the G002. On this unit it's "touch menu open, touch strokes, touch right, touch right, touch putts line, touch right again to fix my strokes that just decremented instead of the cursor jumping to the Putts line, touch putts line again, touch right arrow, touch SAVE". "GAH!" "Screw this!"

While the Guru 4 gives you advanced stats, there is just no way I'll be touching, page flipping, fixing screw-ups for all those lines. I didn't even bother with them that is how frustrated I got after trying to enter my score. I just used a pencil instead to track my stats! On the G002 everything is just intuitive with the joystick and works like it should. If they would port the advanced stats feature onto the G002 I might be inclined to even use them.[/i]

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: Since there are no buttons, entering scores and stats is a pain. I never know when I'll go up or down on the score. The yes/no fields such as GIR, FIR, auto advance and it takes a bit of time to remember whether left is yes and right is no or vica versa on the "soft arrow buttons" that you can bring up to the left or right of the screen. And if you got it wrong you have to click back, change it again and hope for the best. The biggest problem I have found is that all the stats simply won't fit on a single screen so there has to be scrolling. The scrolling just plain sucks. It's more like page flipping with which you never know where you'll end up. all the info fits on 3 pages but for some reason the page flipper flips between 4 distinct displays
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[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: As always, we will take a look at this issue and incrementally improve the UI based on Greg's and other's feedback. Typically any improvements to the user interface will be provided to the current user base at no charge.[/color]

It sounds like they are aware of the problems with the current UI and they are committed to have it fixed/improved in a future release. As it stands right now I don't think it is a mature product worthy of my consumption.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: Basically the GUI was clearly written for a button based device and it was hacked to work on a touch screen device. Forget about iPhone style scrolling or tactile button push feedback, it's just simply isn't there. The GUI while (mostly) functional looks dated the day it comes out from the gates running. I can't comment on AverVue features yet as I have just blown my 2 credits on getting one of the courses I play mapped. I'll have to get back to you on that one but I think it's basically an additional view option that shows you the hole layout and you can point anywhere on the course and it'll give you both distances to the green and to the ball.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Note, the code was not hacked…… it was ported and extended by our professional programming team. We will continue to improve it and provide updates and additional functionality, but starting from a stable platform and adding functionality is a generally accepted and professional programming practice. Also, the iPhone does not provide "tactile" feedback. It provides audible feedback for button clicks and actions, much as the Guru 4 does. The user interface is more closely related to GPS road navigation units rather than the iPhone. This gives the user a similar feel between applications. We provide 5 free AerVu course maps and 2 free credits to preview the AerVu functionality without having to spend extra dollars.[/color]

When I wrote hacked, I really meant directly ported over and trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. At my company I'm on the third iteration of porting code over. Once from Pascal codebase running on a 16Mhz 6800 series chipset with 4MB RAM to C/C++ (mostly C) on a x86 Linux box and currently from the Linux box to Windows using full MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) and C++.

The interesting part of our story is that it's not unlike the Guru story. Our Pascal system used to run on a text based UI where the user had to use a keyboard to navigate menus and enter values. The Linux system was a straight port of the Pascal system with additional features and significant speed performance increase. Our older users loved it but the new users who never saw the Pascal system and were used to nice Windows XP like GIU hated it. They wanted a mouse and nice buttons to click on. Our system that we're working on for Windows will give them that. While the backbone of the system will not change and we're still dragging the legacy code around we are rewriting the GUI from scratch to make it current and look and feel something that was written in the 21st century.

I'd compare the current Guru 4 software to our second generation code running on Linux and we took away the keyboard. It's not a good image in my head....

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: The same issues that exist on the G002 such as the inability to select your set of clubs (they still don't support hybrids but have 5 and 7 woods, they have no lob wedge or gap wedge which some might carry) and the fact that the markers only store GPS coordinates which require the unit to be on and synced with GPS before you can look at your marker distances is just assinine.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: There will be a maintenance release for Guru 4 in the next few weeks that will include the Hybrids 3, 4, 5, Lob and Gap wedges per Greg's and others suggestions.[/color]

My only questions are:
1) Will these changes come down to the G002 as well?
2) Will I have to scroll through 20 different clubs from now on in the mark tool or will there be a setting where I can select which clubs I want to see in the Mark tool?
3) Will there be other improvements to the Mark feature such as organizing them with dates or courses, ability do download them to my computer and the ability to display them without a GPS sync?

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: I can't comment on GPS accuracy yet, I haven't taken it anywhere. The unit did pick up signal inside of my house which is quite impressive as my Garmin Forerunner 305 has issues with that. Golf Guru claims 20 channel GPS, however the GPS status screen only shows 12 channels. They either hide 8 or there is just no more than 12, I don't know.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: As Greg has noticed, the Guru 4 is very sensitive and, as with the Guru 2 and 3 it is accurate as well. This is due to a better GPS receiver and antenna and implementation of proprietary firmware to improve accuracy and sensitivity. The receiver is indeed a 20 channel receiver, but Greg is mistaken in assuming that the number of satellites tracked at any one time is directly related to the number of channels. The number of channels limits the MAXIMUM number of satellites that the GPS receiver can track at one time. The maximum number of satellites in view at any one time is 16 including two Wide Area Augmentation System satellites. Most of the time, the number of satellites in view is between 8 and 12. The GPS channels that are not actively tracking satellites are searching for satellites that are just below the horizon so that the Guru 4 should always be tracking all of the satellites in view. Our testing has indicated that 20 channels currently provide optimum performance in this respect. Adding additional channels does not improve sensitivity and accuracy at this time.[/color]

Since then I have actually tested accuracy:

[i]I can actually say that the accuracy of the two units in outdoor situations is very similar with a slight edge to the Guru 4. Dilution of Precision (DOP) values were almost identical between the two units and always very close to 1 which is pretty much as good as it gets. They both used very similar number of satellites (10-11) and locked on solid. While the G002 shows you the WAAS points that are being used, Guru 4 does not but it certainly uses WAAS as it locks into DGPS mode. ON my office desk G002 will lose all contacts with the outdoors while Guru 4 still manages to lock onto 4 or 5 satellites. This is pretty impressive. I'm assuming on course accuracy will be identical. Another drawback of using third party hardware and software is that the Guru4 does not even sync its internal clock with the GPS provided time any more as Windows CE does not require GPS yet it provides a real time clock. The G002 was built with GPS in mind from the ground up so it syncs its real time clock to the GPS time all the time.[/i]

Saying that "Our testing has indicated that 20 channels currently provide optimum performance in this respect" is a bit of an overstatement. I'm not sure it was Guru folks or the SiRF people who came up with that number. There is a new chipset from SiRF called SiRFatlasIV that has 64 channels. The extra channels are not to make the current GPS system better but because of the new European Galileo constellation that will have 30 satellites. It will be able to read both simultaneously for higher accuracy. But all this is moot since the current Guru units all give excellent accuracy.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: It seems like the golf guru folks are trying to market this unit for other uses too under the OGEO name. But they have not been able to put that website together yet even though their address www.ogeo.com is prominently displayed on the box, the back of the unit and on the boot up screen. All you get is a basic Joomla install page that has no content.
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[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Greg is partially correct in his assumption that we will be offering other applications for the GURU 4 under the OGEO.Com website. OGEO.com is currently pointed at the gpsgolfguru.com site until OGEO.com is complete……a minor slipup on our web development team for not getting it to point at gpsgolfguru.com before the Guru 4 release.[/color]

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: All in all I think this unit is not a whole lot better than a G002 in terms of Golf use. Sure it added the extra stats and AverVuew but I'm not overly impressed with the GUI. This GUI looked and worked fine for the button based G002 but it just looks dated on the touch screen.
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[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Greg is missing several critical factors in his analysis:

1. The GURU 4 Color touch screen is 3.5 inches diagonally and has 320 x 240 pixels. This is significantly larger than the Guru 2 or 3 and is the largest screen currently available in dedicated golf devices. The AerVu UI makes good use of the touch screen, and Greg will see more touch screen UI functionality in future software releases. The larger screen and touch interface will allow us to add functionality that was just not possible on the Guru 2 or even the Guru 3.

2. We have made significant changes to the UI and to the underlying support, and we are making those changes faster than other established players in the market. For example, SkyCaddy does not yet provide a full-hole view equivalent to our AerVu, and they do not provide a touch screen. New entries in the market may leap frog functionality in the SHORT TERM but will they continue to support existing users, and continue to improve their products? At GPS Golf Guru, we are committed to continually improving our software and hardware functionality and where possible, we will push the improvements back to prior hardware versions. In addition, GPS Golf Guru is the ONLY player in the market that consistently offers an upgrade path to our users. We are committed to our users for the long term, not just for one purchase.

3. While Greg feels that the UI looks "dated," we admit that we are more focused on functionality and ease of use than on making the UI LOOK "state-of-the-art." As Windows Vista has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt, LOOKING state-of-the art is much less important than providing the functionality. We will continue to improve the look and feel of the UI, and we will make the updates available to our users.[/color]

I have to agree with Mr. Turner that the Guru people have been a lot more open and customer oriented than most of the other players. They simply can't afford not to be. that is their niche. The feature, significantly larger screen, that Mr. Turner claims is an advantage I actually find one of the biggest hindrance of the unit. Its size is just not pocket friendly. That is just my opinion, mind you.

The dated UI is a subjective statement. However the fact that the soft button bar on the right covers up the mark distance is a fact! It is also a fact that tapping on the screen to enter stats is a crap shoot at best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. While Vista might have been a failure, we should ask Steve Ballmer if he still thinks the iPhone was just a fad that would flop.... I'd venture to say he had a change of heart. I think the biggest selling point of the iPhone is its fantastic UI. I don't own one but every time I see a friend pull one out I'm amazed at the fluid flow of the UI. That should be the example Guru aspires to not Windows Vista.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: I have put an SD card in the unit with a DVDrip that was xvid AVI with mp3 audio stream and the unit played it flawlessly. It also played videos from my Optio W60 camera, however it balked at the 10megapixel JPEGS when I asked to play those back in the image viewer. The mp3 player is not going to replace your iPod either. It plays mp3 files just like Media Player Classic plays them on your computer. However don't expect ID3 tagging or anything else other than the filename being displayed. It will not resume play after you turn it off or exit from the audio playing application. It will also keep the LCD on for the entire time which is totally useless. It is typical of cheap Chinese engineering and their software. The unit is not unlike this: [url="http://www.lightinthebox.com/3-5-inch-Portable-Car-GPS-Navigator-XY-5902---2GB-SD-Card-and-Free-Map--SZC035--_p23010.html"]http://www.lightinthebox.com/3-5-inch-Port...5--_p23010.html[/url]. The only difference is the fact that the Guru folks decided to get theirs in a custom plastic box with a nice tactile rubberized feel and embedded logo on the back.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: The GURU 4 is not intended to replace an iPhone, but it does do several things MUCH better than an iPhone:
1. It's GPS is MUCH more accurate than that of an iPhone (and most of the GPS Golf competition)
2. It's battery last MUCH longer than an iPhone. You can put 11-12 DVD movies on an eight gigabyte card and the Guru 4 will keep your kids engaged and out of your hair for a ten hour flight.
3. It's touch and look is familiar to GPS users.
4. The Guru 4 is not like the unit cited above, it has much more sensitive/accurate GPS characteristics, a much more robust processor, a sunlight readable display, longer battery life, dual channel charging for simultaneous operation and charging and many other technical enhancements.
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1. I was comparing it to the iPod, not the iPhone.
2. [url="http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=215227"]http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=215227[/url] You will get 24 hours of music out of the iPod touch and about 9 hours of movies. Based on the statements and math of another poster in this thread the Guru will get between 7 and 12.5 hours out of a single charge. For video I'd assume you want at least some level of backlight so it will be closer to 7 than 12.5.
3. Agreed
4. Without popping the unit open I will just have to take Mr. Turner's words for it. That particular unit I have linked has the SiRFfStarIII chipset which I'd be betting money on that the Guru has the same, it lists its display as a 320x240 touch screen and a Samsung S3C2440A 400MHz processor. the battery life is certainly impressive on the Guru 4 in comparison to a Garmin Nüvi, but so is its size. That was the compromise The Guru folks took. Larger size vs. shorter battery time. They knew that a unit that won't last the minimum of 5 hours is just not going to play in a golf GPS. The price difference between a 3500mAh and a 2000mAh battery in such a unit can't be more than $8 at the manufacturing level.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: If the Guru people would actually promise me that they will indeed update the software on the G002 unit to keep the same stats as this Guru 4 unit does I'd be very hesitant to keep the new unit. As it stands right now I'm still sitting on the fence. I'm not surprised that the Guru folks went and bought an OEM Windows CE 5.0 core unit and ported their app onto it instead of doing their own R&D for a fancy touch screen unit. It is unfortunate that the OEM unit they bought comes with mediocre software that barely meets the minimum standards (I'd venture to say it doesn't) and the Guru software port just simply looks dated.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: We will support some of the stats functionality on previous Guru models, SPECIFICALLY because we believe in supporting existing customers. That said, the large color touch screen of the Guru 4 WILL allow us to provide ease of use and functionality that we will NOT be able to duplicate on the Guru 2 and 3. This comment seems to fly in the face of Greg's previous comments about porting our software. If we had re-written everything, it would make it very difficult, and not at all cost effective for us to continue to add functionality to the older Gurus. Case in point, how many people that use a SkyCaddy SG3 or SG4 have gotten any software updates lately. Again, we are here for the long term and we will continue to do what we can to support our existing users.[/color]

I have to say I'm not one of those people who will try to sue Apple because they came out with a newer unit for half the cost the day after I just bought mine (disclosure: I don't own anything marketed by and manufactured for Apple on the basis of principle). I certainly don't have that sense of entitlement. And I certainly don't demand such an update from the Guru folks. When I have purchased my G002 based on the information that was available to me I expected the marking stats and club usage stats to be more accessible to me after I have played a round of golf. It turned out that it wasn't. I was a bit disappointed but based on the price/performance of the unit I still felt that I have gotten a good deal and I was happy to live with my G002 crippled with having to mark my shots with a 5-wood when I really hit a hybrid and transfer all the stats to my computer manually from the GPS once it locked onto the satellites. The unit still performed as advertised when it came to measuring distances on the course.

It is always being between a rock and a hard place for companies bringing out new equipment. People feel they're entitled to the features the latest and greatest unit has while not paying a dime for it. How can companies not alienate/upset their existing customers without hurting their own bottom line? It's certainly a fine art that few companies can master. I think my point was that the Guru 4 software looks and feels so much like the G002 software that it would almost be trivial to port the extra stats feature back onto the G002. I certainly don't expect AverVu or ShotPlan on my G002. My other, more important point was that neither of the shortcomings of the G002 that I have pointed out earlier to support have been addressed in the Guru 4 app. Apparently some of them are on the plate to be fixed now, I can only hope that the G002 will get the fix too. It's not a feature request, it's a bug report to have hybrids and gap wedges available as well as marker data being downloadable to my PC.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: If I sound too negative or bitter about the unit, I'm really not. I'm just simply stating that I think the unit was rushed and it will definitely not blow the other units that are out there away in this price range unlike the G002, which was probably the best bang for the buck in its price range. However, with feirce competition coming and already here, I'm eager to see how this one plays out.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Our intent with the Guru 4 was not to (initially) blow the competition out of the water, but to set the stage for many new improvements and applications that we have planned for the Guru product line. That said, we have done numerous customer surveys that indicate that there are a number of users that are looking for a GPS Golf device that supports other applications like road navigation, etc. For these users, the Guru 4 does indeed "blow the competition out of the water." Now that we have the foundation in place, we will continue to blow them out of the water, with continual improvements and the best customer support in the industry.[/color]

I think I just had a misunderstanding of the product. I was expecting something that the Guru 4 just isn't yet. I will certainly keep my eyes on future development to see if it becomes a product for me in the future.

I then proceeded to send some specific questions their way about issues that I have uncovered. Here are Mr. Turner's responses:

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: 1) Will you update the G002 software to maintain the same stats that the new G004 maintains? If yes, when? Considering the G004 software is essentially identical to the G002 except for the UI and button API calls, will you keep the G002 and G004 up to date together?[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Again, the Guru 4 software is by no means identical to the Guru 2 or 3, but we will be migrating some of the stats functionality down to the previous platforms. Again, as we improve the UI and the functionality based on the larger touch screen, some functionality available on the Guru 4 will not be available on previous platforms.[/color]

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: 2) I have tried to map a course manually today with both the G004 and the G002. It's actually a driving range and I just wanted to mark all the target flags with a "fake green" on hole 1 at the end of the range so I can tell how far I am from all the yardage flags as they are measured from the mats but we're hitting from different strips of grass every day. I went ahead and selected Menu->Map Golf Course-Course->Create Course and made a new course called Pecan Valley Driving Range. Then I proceeded to mark three flags on the left, draw a green and mark three flags on the right coming back to the tees. I saved the course but it does not show up in the course list. As a matter of fact none of the manually mapped courses show up, the ones that the unit came pre-loaded with are hidden as well ("Blackhawk Golf Club_Blackhawk Golf Club_252924_20090619122535.gcd", "Circle C Ranch Golf Course_11730_20090709173725.gcd" and "Golf Links Course at Pebble Beach_1687_20090709173725.gcd"). They are on the unit in the \Guru4\courses directory but they don't show up in the selectable course list.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: The 3 courses that Greg saw in the courses folder were included as part of the install for checking purposes but are automatically removed on first sync. He must have had the show hidden files and folders option turned on and browsed the Guru file system before syncing.[/color]

Those files are indeed hidden files, but I can assure you they did not get deleted upon the first sync or any sync after that.

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: If I try to edit the courses, the ones that were pre-loaded don't show up in the loadable list even though they do on my G002. If I try to load the one ("Pecan Valley Driving Range" I just made it does not load either. I get a new blank course called "My" and the entire data is blank and gone missing. I have made 4 personal courses and they all load the same "My" blank course if I try to edit them so it's not a 0 index issue in an array, it's something worse. If I try to rename a course, the course name gets duplicated with an "_" in between the duplicate. So If I want to rename "My" to "My Course" it gets renamed to "My Course_My Course" instead. as of right now, the mapping feature is totally broken and does not work since I can create a map but there is no way to recall it to edit it or there is no way to play it.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Greg is correct about mapping courses function was found to have a bug in Guru 4 code and will be repaired in a new release within a few weeks of this writing.[/color]

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: Since I have tried to sync both units to my PC I have also ran into another problem. The Guru Utility 2.0.4.4 will not sync with the G002 and the Guru Utility 2.0.2.1 will not sync with the G004. And since your install program forces the install directory to be the same for both you can't even have both of them running on your computer at the same time. So if someone has one of each, they're screwed in terms of syncing them both without having to reinstall the corresponding Guru Utility. While there might not be a lot of these people, right now during the "upgrade" there are certainly plenty of us.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: Greg is correct that the initial version of the Guru Utility only supports the Guru 4. A Guru Utility maintenance release will support G2, G3 or G4 device at the same time.[/color]

[color="#0000ff"]GREG TAKACS WROTE: I'm pretty disappointed that none of the shortcomings of the G002 unit have been addressed in the new upgrade, such as a more human way of storing, handling and displaying marker points on the unit or even in a desktop utility, the option to have user selectable club sets, the option to view and edit your scores in the unit or on-line after a round or the fact that the user interface is worse than ever without the actual joystick and hte Mark and Menu buttons being hidden in a pop up menu.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]GPS GOLF GURU WROTE: The GPS Golf Guru web site has been displaying round information for over 30 days and this will work on all the Guru models. The information is also in a downloadable format to different programs for analysis and manipulation. We will address your concerns about additional club sets in out next release. User Interface improvements will be released on a continual basis. As with the Guru Software the website will also provide new functionality over the next few months.[/color]

[color="#ff0000"]We appreciate your in depth analysis and will take all of your concerns and suggestions into consideration. Again we are dedicated to give our users the best possible experience and to not rest on our laurels. We will continually be providing improvement to our customer base.
[/color]
So there you have it! Straight from the source. I'd like to thank the Guru folks for the detailed information, it is certainly a lot more than one could ever expect back from a company. While I still love my G002 my Guru 4 is going to head back to Round Rock, TX before my 30 days are up.

[bigblue]

As I stated before I sent my guru 4 back. I find it hard to believe that a true golfer wants all that other junk on a golf gps, but I could be mistaken. The biggest drawback for me was the large size of the unit. Like others have said it is cumbersome to put it in your pocket and the holster they have is not what I like. I have the belt clip for my guru 3 and for me it works well. It seems that this unit was designed to place in a cart rather than be carried.

[phil75070]

I know my old SG2 wasn't suitable for carrying around in my pocket. About the only time I put my 003 in my pocket is when I am away from the cart for some reason. You can't have a large LCD screen, backlighting, and large battery without adding some size and weight to it. I have put it in my pocket. Is it as "comfortable" or as unobtrusive as the 002/003? No, but it is doable. If that is an important criteria then stick with the 002/003. Personally, I would rather accept the bulk and have the larger screen with touch screen functionality than the smaller uPro screen that might be more comfortable in my pocket.

GTakacs, I am not going to address every point in your post above as I think Mr. Turner did a good job of that and yet you still took issue with many of his answers. I don't know many companies that would have bothered to respond in such a detailed way to a single customer yet you don;t seem to accept a lot of what he says. However, just fooling around with the unit today after receiving it in the mail I see no problem using a tee or the stylus or the side buttons to keep stats and score. Using one's finger on the directional arrows for each is definitely not the best method, especially if one has "meaty" hands! But I figured out how to even do that with few problems as well.

As for the side buttons hiding the mark yardage, if you go into settings and tap on the yards setting (half hidden at the bottom of the menu) it goes to another page where you have the option of switching sides for those buttons. Problem solved.

Are there bugs, glitches and things that can be improved? Yes, several. The scroll arrows on the menus don't seem to function very well for one thing and the last item on a menu list gets cut-off by the bottom navigation bar being two examples. I don't know about the mapping/editing, yet, as I won't have a chance to fool around with that for a while. I have not had it on the course so I can't comment about the readability of the screen or battery life.

As for being a multi-function device, I have no problem with that and, in fact I like some aspects of it. For example, instead of taking both my GPS and iPod to the course, I can now put my Tour Tempo recordings on the Guru for my range practice. The coming Navigational Software will be useful, too, I believe. My car has built-in navigation and we have a portable device for my wife's car, but it has to be plugged into a 12V cigarette lighter to work. To have a handheld navigational unit that operates off of battery might actually come in handy.

You assume when they talk about a more accurate GPS receiver that it [b][i]must [/i][/b]be the SiRFstarIII chip. It may very well be since this device is coming out of Asia and I believe Sirf is a Taiwanese company. Nowhere did Mr. Turner state what chip is used. The 002/003 happen to use the U-Blox chipset, I think (same as the SkyGolf SG5). Just because a chip has certain capability (you mention that other consumer devices that use the SiRFstarIII) doesn't mean they have been implemented the same way. You should read the application notes and compendium at U-Blox to get an idea of how many different ways their U-Blox-5 can be utilized. There are a lot of options depending on the degree of accuracy desired.

You keep mentioning that the software is simply "ported over". Of course it is going to look very similar. They have an accepted and very usable methodology that was used on the 002/003 so why wouldn't they try to keep as much common to all of their devices as possible? I like the idea of knowing when I go into the menu screens or any of the views what I will find there because I am already familiar with the functionality from my 002/003. The functionality of the SkyGolf SG5 looks very much like the same software they used on the old SG2 with a few added features thrown in.

One feature I noticed that is clever is in the advanced stats. If you indicate "Yes" for GIR then miss l/r or s/l are inoperable. Same if you answer FIR "Yes". Only if you answer "No" to those can you indicate where you missed. Was some of your frustration caused by a lack of awareness of this? I didn't grasp that at first just playing with it. I indicated 'yes' to GIR then thought the functionality wasn't working when I went to that next menu item to see what the options were and couldn't get it to change!

I can see that perhaps they rushed this to market a little bit. After all, this is the heart of the golf season across North America. It isn't the first time a company has done that and it won't be the last. I think the people at Golf Guru established a track record based on how they handled the initial problems with the 002 and I have no doubt that they will be able to address all of the bugs within a relatively short time.

Finally, as Mr. Turner pointed out, how many other companies in the Golf GPS business offer an upgrade path for previous customers. I have an SG2 still sitting here. Can I trade up with SkyGolf to an SG5, you think? They have recently offered a software upgrade (for a fee!) that added a couple of features and expanded the course storage capability to 20 courses. They did not, however, make that available to owners of the older SG2, only their latest offerings (SG2.5 and SG5).

There is a new utility in beta that will allow one to synch any of the three devices with the server (only one at a time, though). I believe it also incorporates a new feature that makes synching move along faster.

Some people use IE, some use Firefox, some use Opera and some use Chrome. Some drive GM cars, some Ford, some drive Japanese or German cars. Budgets differ; needs differ; wants differ; tastes differ. It is wonderful to have choices.

Edited for spelling

[GTakacs]

[quote name='phil75070' post='1837620' date='Jul 22 2009, 07:43 PM']GTakacs, I am not going to address every point in your post above as I think Mr. Turner did a good job of that and yet you still took issue with many of his answers. I don't know many companies that would have bothered to respond in such a detailed way to a single customer yet you don;t seem to accept a lot of what he says. However, just fooling around with the unit today after receiving it in the mail I see no problem using a tee or the stylus or the side buttons to keep stats and score. Using one's finger on the directional arrows for each is definitely not the best method, especially if one has "meaty" hands! But I figured out how to even do that with few problems as well.[/quote]

This is what I have sent Mr. Turner along with the rest of my responses:

[i]Thank you for your very detailed response. I certainly did not expect it. As per your request I have posted your response on golfwrx.com along with the original questions. I also took the liberty to add comments to your responses.

The bottom line for me is that I will be returning my Guru 4 for a full refund within my 30 day window thanks to your generous return policy.

.....

Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions/concerns and to straighten me out at places where I might have been wrong. I am still 100% satisfied with my G002 and I most definitely recommend it to all my friends who are looking for a Golf GPS. I'm certainly looking forward to the time when I can say the same thing about the Guru 4.
[/i]
Just because Mr. Turner responded it does not necessarily mean that I have to agree with his statements. On some of them I agree, on others I don't.

[quote]As for the side buttons hiding the mark yardage, if you go into settings and tap on the yards setting (half hidden at the bottom of the menu) it goes to another page where you have the option of switching sides for those buttons. Problem solved.[/quote]

Sure, as long as you're a lefty. I prefer my buttons under my right thumb, but that's just me. User interface design is one of the toughest things to do. And to do it with no consumer study is just not smart. Since I do User Interface design for my company on a daily basis I know all too well the issues with it. One thing that might work for you will not work for someone else. Something that is completely intuitive to the design engineer who has been handling the same device and looking at the same screens for months feels completely weird for the end user when he first gets his dirty paws on the device. Sometimes you just have to stand back and try to look at it with the eyes of your customers. Better yet ask your (prospective) customers. And this problem should not be solved at the user level. The engineer who stuck that menu on the right of the screen should have realized that it was going to cover up the mark distance. He clearly either didn't or didn't care enough to fix it by nudging the Mark distance closer to the center of the screen. Why not? Because it was already in the bottom right corner on the G002 and they didn't even think twice about it.

[quote]As for being a multi-function device, I have no problem with that and, in fact I like some aspects of it. For example, instead of taking both my GPS and iPod to the course, I can now put my Tour Tempo recordings on the Guru for my range practice. The coming Navigational Software will be useful, too, I believe. My car has built-in navigation and we have a portable device for my wife's car, but it has to be plugged into a 12V cigarette lighter to work. To have a handheld navigational unit that operates off of battery might actually come in handy.[/quote]

Like I wrote in my prior review the multi-function part of the unit it is rather spartan. It will play mp3s no better than you double clicking a file in Windows explorer and playing it. Why would I buy the nav package for $70 from an unkown source when I can buy a Garmin Nuvi 205 for $119 that I know will come with the NAVTEQ quality mapping and Garmin quality routing algorithm. I'm still using an old streetpilot in my car but when it croaks I'll definitely buy another Garmin unit.

[quote]You assume when they talk about a more accurate GPS receiver that it [b][i]must [/i][/b]be the SiRFstarIII chip. It may very well be since this device is coming out of Asia and I believe Sirf is a Taiwanese company. Nowhere did Mr. Turner state what chip is used. The 002/003 happen to use the U-Blox chipset, I think (same as the SkyGolf SG5). Just because a chip has certain capability (you mention that other consumer devices that use the SiRFstarIII) doesn't mean they have been implemented the same way. You should read the application notes and compendium at U-Blox to get an idea of how many different ways their U-Blox-5 can be utilized. There are a lot of options depending on the degree of accuracy desired.[/quote]

I'm sorry but I'm willing to bet money on the fact that this unit is using the SiRFstarIII GPS. I'm also willing to bet that this unit is using a [url="http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-TW&u=http://www.direct-buy.cn/v/3/product_detail/3772256/GPS%25E4%25BB%258B%25E8%25B3%25AA%25E5%25A4%25A9%25E7%25B7%259A.html&ei=KMNnSpCwJJKSlAfAq_2yCQ&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=4&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dgps%2B1575r%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US%3a%6ffficial%26sa%3DN%26start%3D10"]dielectric GPS antenna[/url] that costs under a penny per unit. The unit might use a faster/better/newer ARM9E processor than the one I have originally linked to, but we're talking about +$1-$2 difference in price per unit. Mind you I'm not an EE, I'm an SE so I'm just speculating....

[quote]You keep mentioning that the software is simply "ported over". Of course it is going to look very similar. They have an accepted and very usable methodology that was used on the 002/003 so why wouldn't they try to keep as much common to all of their devices as possible? I like the idea of knowing when I go into the menu screens or any of the views what I will find there because I am already familiar with the functionality from my 002/003. The functionality of the SkyGolf SG5 looks very much like the same software they used on the old SG2 with a few added features thrown in.[/quote]

If it ain't broken don't fix it. Sure! I agree. But the "accepted very usable methodology" had 3 soft buttons, 4 hard buttons and a joystick for full control. This unit has 3 soft buttons, 4 buttons hidden under a pop up bar and that's it.

[quote]One feature I noticed that is clever is in the advanced stats. If you indicate "Yes" for GIR then miss l/r or s/l are inoperable. Same if you answer FIR "Yes". Only if you answer "No" to those can you indicate where you missed. Was some of your frustration caused by a lack of awareness of this? I didn't grasp that at first just playing with it. I indicated 'yes' to GIR then thought the functionality wasn't working when I went to that next menu item to see what the options were and couldn't get it to change![/quote]

I have noticed this "clever feature" as well. However this feature not only disables miss locations if you hit the green in regulation it also advances you to the next stat that you would be entering. I might be an idiot or just fat fingered but when I accidentally set Yes instead of No and I find myself on the next page of the stats where it takes me 3 more pushes to go back where I was so I can fix my mistake, I just find it a bit aggravating. What would really be clever if the left/right front/rear miss areas wouldn't even show up on the screen unless you actually select no to FIR or GIR. Now THAT would be clever! And i'd like my cursor to stay on the same line it was on considering the high chances of putting in the wrong value.

[quote]I can see that perhaps they rushed this to market a little bit. After all, this is the heart of the golf season across North America. It isn't the first time a company has done that and it won't be the last. I think the people at Golf Guru established a track record based on how they handled the initial problems with the 002 and I have no doubt that they will be able to address all of the bugs within a relatively short time.[/quote]

I think I have to agree with the rushing to market part. Whether it's better to get crappy reviews from actual users, disappointed early adopters and scrimmage for bug fixes while people state the obvious vs. sending the unit to a select few with signed NDAs and be a couple of weeks late to market with a solid product is a decision each company has to make on their own. I only bought my G002 2 months ago so I missed the early bugs. I still think it has bugs or features that don't really work as advertised originally (see above) but it is a very usable product for the money. The Guru 4 is just not there IMHO.

[quote]Finally, as Mr. Turner pointed out, how many other companies in the Golf GPS business offer an upgrade path for previous customers. I have an SG2 still sitting here. Can I trade up with SkyGolf to an SG5, you think? They have recently offered a software upgrade (for a fee!) that added a couple of features and expanded the course storage capability to 20 courses. They did not, however, make that available to owners of the older SG2, only their latest offerings (SG2.5 and SG5).[/quote]

What is your point? I don't see Apple exhanging first generation iPhones for second generation ones. But I do see them sending periodic updates and bugfixes for their first generation phone all the time. It is a business decision. GG is trying to differentiate themselves in this market by offering upgrades. However if you look a bit closer, you can probably get more for your G002 on eBay than GG is offering, especially considering the shortage of G002 units. I for one would certainly try to sell mine private party before I'd take the GG upgrade path. The only reason I was in the GG upgrade is because I was one of the few who bought the G002 within 30 days of the Guru 4 announcement and I was eligible for a full refund.

[quote]There is a new utility in beta that will allow one to synch any of the three devices with the server (only one at a time, though). I believe it also incorporates a new feature that makes synching move along faster.[/quote]

I have told them over a month ago that they should be comparing MD5 sums of course data before updating blindly every single one of them on the unit. I don't know if they actually implemented that or doing something else to sync faster.

Remember, this is not a pissing match. I simply stated my opinion of this unit based on my technical background. We can certainly all agree to disagree. I think forums like this one keep a lot of the companies more honest nowadays and a lot harder for them to get away with anything. It's good for the consumer, bad for the business. It's easy to badmouth a product and put doubt in people's mind about it whether the statements were actually true or not. I think my assessment was more true than not no matter how you try to slice it.

On a completely side and probably more appropriate of the discussion note, they have mapped the course I usually play at in AverVu. It looks nice. I'll actually play the course tomorrow but somehow I don't think I'll be lugging the Guru 4 around. I have already found an issue with it. Unless you are at the course ready to tee off, the shot planning feature is useless unless you always play from the tips. If you want to review a course while at the office and plan on a tee shot, you can look at the course but the tee location will always be at the tips. Some of the forward tee locations aren't even shown on the AverVu map, especially the women's tees that might be 100 yrds closer to the green. I think the unit should default the tee marker location of the ShotPlan to whatever tees you have selected to play from. It might sound like a minor thing, but the devil's in the details.

[Rickochet]

I emailed GG last week about my concerns about battery life. I got a reply back today.

"I am sorry for the delay in this email, the response to the Guru 4 Touch Screen has even exceeded our lofty expectations. Our email inboxes have been inundated, and our average incoming phone call volume for Sales and Support has increased dramatically. Please bear with us while we gear up to meet a demand that is higher than projected.

The battery should run for 6-8 Hrs on a single charge. There is an issue with the battery indicator. The indicator will go to red after 4-5hrs, but should run for an additional 3-4Hrs once in red. We should have a release very shortly that resolves this issue.

Thank you for your patience.


Chad
Golf Guru Support"

[kmdmb]

I turned mine on the golf program and set in in the window. It was still working 10 hours later. That is with no backlight all day. The indicator does seem to turn red way too soon.

[PlaneMaker]

After reading this thread GG has not gone into hiding on this unit and working to fix the issues of a new product release.

So, the real question is the discount to get a unit that might not be ready for prime time worth it given the fact that each and everyone of these issues can fixed in time?

If you are a patient person the answer is yes.

[Rickochet]

[quote name='PlaneMaker' post='1838951' date='Jul 23 2009, 01:12 PM']After reading this thread GG has not gone into hiding on this unit and working to fix the issues of a new product release.

So, the real question is the discount to get a unit that might not be ready for prime time worth it given the fact that each and everyone of these issues can fixed in time?

If you are a patient person the answer is yes.[/quote]

You can also get the G4 from InTheHoleGolf for $323 with free shipping. They list it at $359 but you can get a 10% discount. Just put FGI10 or 4GEA10 in the code box at checkout. They probably have a code for this forum also but I don't know for sure.

[ChoppingBrocolli]

I just played 18 with the G4. [u]I am still not in love with it[/u].

Pulling it out of my pocket, for the last approach shot of the day on 18, the switch accidentally turned [color="#ff0000"]OFF[/color]. This the 2nd time this has happened.

The course I was playing and had paid for the AerVu map still was not mapped and was "pending".

Most important, I discovered (as was mentioned in a previous tread), the Smart Green feature (where you move the pin placement to get an accurate yardage) [color="#ff0000"]doesn't work[/color]. You can move the pin to very back of the green and the yardage will stay the same or only add a yard or two.

This puppy is going back to Round Rock.

[phil75070]

I understand there is about a two week backlog on AerVu maps as despite the number of apparent negatives expressed on this site the new Guru 4 has been pretty well received. Given my experience with the G002 and the way they worked to get all the problems resolved with that device, which they ultimately did, I have enough faith in them that I will stick with it.

Sometimes, you have to accept things for what they are. You don't buy a two-seater sports car and complain that you can't get a 52" LCD TV that you just bought into the trunk to get it home. That's what pick-up trucks and large SUVs are for. The '4' is obviously designed as a large screen, touch screen, multi-function device. It may not be for everyone. There are certainly existing choices out there if you want a small screen golf only GPS with graphic representation of the holes that would fit more comfortably in one's pocket. I think folks at Golf Guru are following what is referred to as a "Blue Ocean" strategy for those familiar with the concept. Rather than try to compete directly in a market with existing products (a "red Ocean" strategy), the folks at Golf Guru are creating their own market. Except for a feature here or there, the V300, uPro, OnPar and Garmin Approach G5 are practically interchangeable. Eventually, they will only be able to compete with one another on price which may seem like a good thing at first but could result in one or more of those products being discontinued or support lagging due to lack of profitability.

Just my opinion.

[dougsmithsr]

[quote name='phil75070' post='1843148' date='Jul 25 2009, 07:40 PM']I understand there is about a two week backlog on AerVu maps as despite the number of apparent negatives expressed on this site the new Guru 4 has been pretty well received. Given my experience with the G002 and the way they worked to get all the problems resolved with that device, which they ultimately did, I have enough faith in them that I will stick with it.[/quote]
I don't think that the folks that purchased the GG4 don't have faith in the folks at GG. I just think they are just having so many problems that they are just frustrated especially after the long wait for shipment.

[quote]Sometimes, you have to accept things for what they are. You don't buy a two-seater sports car and complain that you can't get a 52" LCD TV that you just bought into the trunk to get it home. That's what pick-up trucks and large SUVs are for. The '4' is obviously designed as a large screen, touch screen, multi-function device.[/quote]
True you wouldn't buy a two-seater sports car and complain about about trunk size, but you would expect it to perform as advertised, and with the short battery life, difficulty with the screens, menus and stat input and overall size. I would say there are legitamate issues here and most of us probably expected a more advanced product and not an Alpha or Beta at this point.

[quote]It may not be for everyone. There are certainly existing choices out there if you want a small screen golf only GPS with graphic representation of the holes that would fit more comfortably in one's pocket. I think folks at Golf Guru are following what is referred to as a "Blue Ocean" strategy for those familiar with the concept. Rather than try to compete directly in a market with existing products (a "red Ocean" strategy), the folks at Golf Guru are creating their own market. Except for a feature here or there, the V300, uPro, OnPar and Garmin Approach G5 are practically interchangeable. Eventually, they will only be able to compete with one another on price which may seem like a good thing at first but could result in one or more of those products being discontinued or support lagging due to lack of profitability.

Just my opinion.[/quote]

Most of this is probably true and it appears that most of the folks that are sending the unit back are not saying that the GG4 won't be a great unit someday, just not today. And with a 30 day window, you just can't always just stick with it especially if you want your money back to maybe take a look at some of the others such as V300, uPro, OnPar or Garmin. Or anything else that might pop up new.
IMHO

[dmartin1976]

One of the most common cons is battery life, and the bars go down pretty quickly, but as GG said it is an bug in their software which they will correct. My question is has anyone actually had their unit's battery die while on the course during an 18 hole round? I played another long round (and no it's not because of me) and while the battery was down to 1 bar, it never turned red and performance seemed normal. I'm not sure hoe many folks out there play 36 hoels regularly, but I don't really have a problem with having to charge the device after every 18 holes, I'm used to charging my phone every night so it isn't really that annoying to me.

[dougsmithsr]

[quote name='dmartin1976' post='1843263' date='Jul 25 2009, 09:09 PM']One of the most common cons is battery life, and the bars go down pretty quickly, but as GG said it is an bug in their software which they will correct. My question is has anyone actually had their unit's battery die while on the course during an 18 hole round? I played another long round (and no it's not because of me) and while the battery was down to 1 bar, it never turned red and performance seemed normal. I'm not sure hoe many folks out there play 36 hoels regularly, but I don't really have a problem with having to charge the device after every 18 holes, I'm used to charging my phone every night so it isn't really that annoying to me.[/quote]


Mine died before I sent it back one weekend when I played 36 holes. I managed to get 27 holes and it just shut down. But it was an extremly long day. Started around 7am the GG4 died around 2:30 or 3, it was about 8 hrs. I quickly turned on my Golf Logix to finish the round with. Considering the fact that it is a large screen and using the back light, this would have been doable for me. I returned mine because of the many little issues, and just didn't want to get caught keeping it past the 30 day window. If the bugs are cleared later down the road I may give it another try, but for now I will let others beta test it.

[phil75070]

I had and expressed the same frustrations with the original G002 so the issues and complaints are understandable. The difference is that they had no track record at the time and who knew if they would ever get around to fixing everything. The complaints about the bugs like the yardage to the pin in SmartGreen, and a number of other problems are certainly legitimate and reason enough to send it back. My comment about the sports car was strictly because so many have complained either about the inability to carry it around in one's pocket, or the comparative discomfort when doing so, or, as one noted, being switched off when extracting it. I don't see where small size, light weight and pocket portability are being advertised for this device.

[dougsmithsr]

[quote name='phil75070' post='1843713' date='Jul 26 2009, 07:20 AM']My comment about the sports car was strictly because so many have complained either about the inability to carry it around in one's pocket, or the comparative discomfort when doing so, or, as one noted, being switched off when extracting it. I don't see where small size, light weight and pocket portability are being advertised for this device.[/quote]

That part I can agree with you about. After seeing pictures of the unit before it shipped, different angles of the unit sitting in cup holders and on a widshield as an auto GPS should definately let you know that it was kind of hefty in size. Its just that expectation were so high for performance that the size really didn't matter that much or should I say in my case would have been a work around. All of the many other issues just kind of magnified the size issue even more, making the device not ready for prime time right now.

[GTakacs]

[quote name='phil75070' post='1843713' date='Jul 26 2009, 06:20 AM']I had and expressed the same frustrations with the original G002 so the issues and complaints are understandable. The difference is that they had no track record at the time and who knew if they would ever get around to fixing everything.[/quote]

I'd have to say that while some of the initial bugs of the G002 have been fixed, I'd say some of the advertised features are still seriously lacking. GG folks might have been too busy and occupied getting the Guru 4 out for the past couple of months but when I bought a product that was a year into production I thought some if these issues should have been already reported and fixed. Case in point:

1) User configurable club sets for marking feature.
2) Mark data getting stored and retrieved by date and/or course name
3) A proper file manager with editable past scoring data inside the unit.
4) A method to transfer view, store and edit marking data outside of the unit.
5) Random reset while using mark feature.
6) Mark feature that displays recorded distances without the need of GPS sync.
7) A decent desktop software with some of the scoring/stat/configuration features implemented instead of a default windows dialog with a button, and a text field.

On a side note I'd like to mention that the Guru website has never been impressive (they use Joomla after all) and since the Guru 4 came out, Guru 2 information is pretty much MIA. I have still managed to find the comparison table with other b/w units. That table still clearly advertises the following, never implemented or currently not working, features:

Approved Handicap Capture - they have not been able to resolve the issues between them and UShandicap for months now. This unit will not perform approved handicap capture. I'd actually be content if it would upload my stats to oobgolf. Should not be that tough, oobgolf provides free API to upload data to their system and their website, unlike some others, rock because it was written from ground up by some real web coders.

Stats Capture - The only stats G002 captures are GIR/FIR and putts. GIR can be automatically deducted from strokes minus putts vs par minus putts. Oobgolf's stat system does it automatically. So that really leaves you with putts and FIR. Not an impressive stat system, certainly not something you'd expect from the advertisement comparison.

Shot Distance - The retrieval of this information is limited to displaying on the screen of the unit and only once GPS lock is acquired. Far from useful when I'm indoors entering my stats into oobgolf. It is also totally useless to store multiple rounds as the only thing that gets stored by each shot is the hole it was shot on, not the date or the course. Good luck correlating 20 different rounds after the fact.

Club Distance Table - not implemented. It must have been left on the cutting room floor.....

Stats web interface - it is kind of working finally but like I wrote, the stats it keeps are very limited. Putts and FIR. That's it. Oh and there is absolutely no way to fix/modify a score if it was screwed up when entered. There is also no way to fix such thing on the unit itself after the round is over.

So I'd say the G002 is far from perfect in the stats department. It never has been and probably never will. Definitely don't buy it for any of these features, my scorecard and pencil and manual entry into oobgolf after a round works a lot better.

[quote]My comment about the sports car was strictly because so many have complained either about the inability to carry it around in one's pocket, or the comparative discomfort when doing so, or, as one noted, being switched off when extracting it. I don't see where small size, light weight and pocket portability are being advertised for this device.[/quote]

Aside from the fact that I thought the unit will be portable enough to carry in my pocket, GG website does an excellent job of hiding the fact just how thick this unit really is. When you look on the Guru 4 information page you will get a straight head on view of the Guru 4 and another picture of a G002 laying next to a score card and a dollar bill with visible depth. The two pictures are not drawn to scale either.

From these two pictures subconsciously one will deduct that the Guru 4 must be about as thick as the G002 and its size must not be that much bigger as the G002 as they're sitting next to each other within the same view with no frame of reference other than the dollar bill by the G002. Then there is the "Small and Lightweight" statement in the list of features to cement in this assumption.

If you really want to know how big this unit is you have to dig into the comparison page one more time and look at the very bottom for dimension comparison. At this point you'd see that it is the second heaviset and the tallest unit. I'd venture to say most folks never bother to look there.

As for the on/off button, the button is recessed but it certainly has a cheap, 80's Walkman, feel to it. I can't remember the last time I've seen such a sliding button design on a current consumer electronic device.

Phil, you have certainly been the forum advocate for the G002 and when you were called out on it I felt people were wrong. I'm starting to see their point now. Consider me the devil's advocate.

[phil75070]

GTakacs,

You make some valid points with regard to the stats feature and club distance table (I never understood clearly exactly what they were referring to). Though the stats capture on the G002 is pretty basic, at the time and even right now not many of the golf GPS devices offer even that. Apparently, uPro has been promising stat capture for some time and has yet to deliver anything. Does any of the SkyGolf products do this? I am not totally familiar with what their "for a fee" software upgrades ended up adding.

Many of the items in your list, other than that random reset bug you mention, are improvements that have been suggested that would certainly make the units better and better judgment in how some of the features were implemented probably could have been exercised. But, not being familiar with some of the features of all the competing units out there......

1) Which other golf GPS devices even store the club and shot conditions with their mark feature?
2) With which other GPS devices can you retrieve marks by date and/or course name?
3) Do other GPS devices have a "proper file manager with editable past scoring data inside the unit"? - which ones?
4) Do others have a method to transfer view, store and edit marking data outside of the unit?
5) Random reset while using mark feature. - never had the problem but apparently some have.
6) Mark feature that displays recorded distances without the need of GPS sync - that never made sense to me. The distance result shoudl be saved along with the club and condition, not the GPS coordinates - agreed.
7) A decent desktop software with some of the scoring/stat/configuration features implemented instead of a default windows dialog with a button, and a text field. - here I am not sure what you are referring to but what other devices do this? An example might help.

Again, those are all good suggestions for improvement but in most cases they are suggested improvements on features that most others don't even offer. Those that do have something comparable don't offer the "complete package". And add to that the ability to edit downloaded courses and to "fully" map a complete course to include the outline of the greens for use with the Smart Green feature.

Yes, you can say I became an advocate for the Golf Guru products, but if you go way back you will also see that I was one of their biggest critics before they won me over with their customer service, intense desire to deliver as much as they can on a positive experience and the solid "package" of features that no other device currently offers . Could the functionality or the way certain features were implemented be improved? Absolutely! And they hear from me frequently with both suggestions and criticism. I try to "call 'em as I see 'em". For example, I think the whole AerVu implementation is VERY poor and needs a lot of work. I, personally, would not spend money to add any more of those courses to my device until certain functionality is added. It might have some value on a course one has never played before, but truthfully gives you just a little more information off the tee than looking at the hole depiction on a scorecard would provide, but I find the AervU view totally useless for subsequent shots on a hole.

I think the people behind Golf Guru are trying to offer a product that has more "bang for the buck" than the competition. They have been in the handheld golf GPS business for, what, less than two years, and have tried to offer features and capabilities that those who have been in this business for many years have still not implemented. The execution has been a little weak in areas, I agree, but I give them credit for trying.

[dmartin1976]

I have been using the mark feature to try to get a better idea of my exact lengths for clubs to make club selection better. I was wondering why (or maybe I missed it) you can really see these stats or track them, I wish they would record the marks online too and show avg length of each club marked. Can the unit do this or are marks really only a 1 time value that don't really get saved or tracked by the device/site in any way?

[GTakacs]

[quote name='phil75070' post='1844085' date='Jul 26 2009, 12:46 PM']Many of the items in your list, other than that random reset bug you mention, are improvements that have been suggested that would certainly make the units better and better judgment in how some of the features were implemented probably could have been exercised. But, not being familiar with some of the features of all the competing units out there......
...

Again, those are all good suggestions for improvement but in most cases they are suggested improvements on features that most others don't even offer. Those that do have something comparable don't offer the "complete package". And add to that the ability to edit downloaded courses and to "fully" map a complete course to include the outline of the greens for use with the Smart Green feature.[/quote]

Mind you most of the things I have listed are not improvements. They're simply features that were promised to me when I looked at the comparison table with other units on the Guru website. How can you advertise stats feature when it only entails whether you hit FIR or not and the number of putts? How can they say that "we have it and the competition doesn't"? Take a look at [url="http://www.teeshotlive.com/teeshot"]TeeShot[/url] or the even more impressive looking [url="http://www.golfshot.com/"]GolfShot[/url]for iPhone. Just check them out. You will see just how much better those applications look than anything that has ever came from GG. I also recomment reading the [url="http://resources.golfshot.com/userguide.pdf"]GolfShot manual[/url]. Can you say polished? Mind you these are not dedicated GPS units they're software applications running on a fixed platform. Kind of like Guru 4 running on Windows CE 5.0. I can't say how accurate the iPhone apps are in terms of GPS accuracy but if I were GG i'd take a good look at them for GUI design.

And to back to your car analogy. I'd say it's like there is a company who promises in their brochure that they're selling a car that can go from 0-60 in 3 seconds flat, it gets 50mpg on the highway, it will seat 7 adults comfortably and it has a built in ice chest full of beer. I gladly buy the car then it turns out that it's more like 9 seconds on the 0-60, it gets closer to 25mpg on the highway, it will only seat 5 adults and 2 kids on a good day with no luggage and there is absolutely no ice chest on the car.

Then you come along and ask me to show you another car that can go 0-60 in 3 seconds or one that has an ice chest in it full of beer. My answer is that it doesn't matter whether there is one out there with those features or not. The only thing that matters is that the one I bought was advertised as such and the dealer is unwilling to even install an aftermarket cooler free of charge. That is all.

[quote]Yes, you can say I became an advocate for the Golf Guru products, but if you go way back you will also see that I was one of their biggest critics before they won me over with their customer service, intense desire to deliver as much as they can on a positive experience and the solid "package" of features that no other device currently offers. Could the functionality or the way certain features were implemented be improved? Absolutely![/quote]

I'm only miffed because a brand new product came out and it didn't even address the mistakes and shortcomings of the predecessor, the very issues that I have pointed out to them over a month ago and were acknowledged. And the chances of those mistakes and shortcomings getting fixed on the G002 are even slimmer than before with all support and development going to the latest unit. Mind you I have not requested upgraded features, only that the features that exist work as advertised.

[quote]They have been in the handheld golf GPS business for, what, less than two years, and have tried to offer features and capabilities that those who have been in this business for many years have still not implemented. The execution has been a little weak in areas, I agree, but I give them credit for trying.[/quote]

I doubt that GolfShot was in the golf gps business 2 years ago. I have also seen software engineers write multi-threaded data analyzing and processing algorithms and applications that receive and handle 10GB worth of information over the network per day single handedly (over 800 source files with 400+ objects) in a year and a half. "Sorry we're new to this" is not a valid excuse.

[ramsey_steve]

Re Guru 4, some further thoughts and observations:

Overall I am more inclined now to keeping it that I was last week when it first arrived.

Battery life is less of an issue than I first thought. played 18 y'day with it and finished with two green bars left (full brightness, 30 secs backlight timeout), and from Greg Takac's earlier post it sounds like the battery life issues is actually a software issue with the battery indicator's accuracy. The first time I used it though I had the backlight on all the time and it ran into the red indicator within 9 holes.

Now that my local course is AerVu mapped I can see that while Aervu is of little use on my home course, on the less familiar layouts it's going to be a terrific help, and I'm certain that subsequent software updates will improve it's utility. GG's mapping may lack a bit in the 'eye candy' department, but their rendition of my home course is excellent in actual usage.

As you can place your finger (or tee) anywhere on the screen to move the distance marker around, I found it much easier and faster to use than I'd expected. I'm in the less-is-more crowd, and like things kept simple. I've never used the marks, stats or scoring for that reason, but I will try them out on the G004, just for the heck of it.

Aervu pricing: I'm guessing the market place will dictate what GG can charge for the courses. In the meantime, I discovered they have a bug in their website that causes them to charge two credits per nine holes at a course that has three nines, ie six credits in total instead of three. Customer service responded to my email and credited me back three credits within 24 hours, so GG's customer service is alive and well, despite all the extra G004 workload.

Speed: The G004 definitely processes faster than my G002, which itself always seems a bit faster than my playing partners' Golf Logix and Sky Caddy units. Distances seem to be spot on with little or no 'bouncing' around. it is fair to note though that I walk at my home course. I haven't used it when riding yet.

The BIG negative: in bright, direct sunlight I'm finding the screen hard to read. Not impossible, but difficult. Not a deal breaker at this stage, but enough that on occasion I had to remove it from where it's mounted on my Speed Cart to view it from a different angle. I wonder if the screen saver they supply affects this one way or the other..


Steve

[Rickochet]

I had my 6th round with the G4 today and I have decided to keep it. I mainly got it for a bigger screen for my 60 year old eyes. Today was my first round in a totally cloudless bright day and it did fine. I had it mounted on the GG cup mount for a couple of rounds and it was ok but today I had the "gripper" unit from the cup mount mounted to a Ram cart rail mount at eye level and I liked it much better.

I think the G4 is a great cart mount unit but maybe not so great for pocket use. One glitch is when moving the flag on the screen the distance to pin doesn't move but I have faith that that will be corrected with new firmware upload.

[phil75070]

[quote name='Rickochet' post='1846847' date='Jul 27 2009, 06:49 PM']I had my 6th round with the G4 today and I have decided to keep it. I mainly got it for a bigger screen for my 60 year old eyes. Today was my first round in a totally cloudless bright day and it did fine. I had it mounted on the GG cup mount for a couple of rounds and it was ok but today I had the "gripper" unit from the cup mount mounted to a Ram cart rail mount at eye level and I liked it much better.

I think the G4 is a great cart mount unit but maybe not so great for pocket use. One glitch is when moving the flag on the screen the distance to pin doesn't move but I have faith that that will be corrected with new firmware upload.[/quote]


I don't like the idea of pulling it out of a case like they offer, either, so I am affixing one of those cell phone type buttons to the back of it for use with a belt clip. Now if I can only figure a way to attach it to my carry bag.....

That isn't the only glitch. The two most important ones are the distance to the pin you mention and the fact that you can't scroll the target list if it exceeds one screen in length. Those two things go to the basic use of a golf GPS. Others, like an issue with stats capture, mapping/editing issues, and AerVu functionality are secondary, although AerVu goes to the heart of what the Guru 4 is all about.

[phil75070]

Golf Guru just announced a firmware upgrade for the 002/003 to version 2.04 fixing the problem with the unit powering down unexpectedly when using the Mark button. The upgrade is offered the next time you synch your device.

[Rickochet]

[quote name='phil75070']I don't like the idea of pulling it out of a case like they offer, either, so I am affixing one of those cell phone type buttons to the back of it for use with a belt clip. Now if I can only figure a way to attach it to my carry bag.....[/quote]

Go to your local hardware store or Walmart and get a spring clamp. They kind of look like a large clothes pin. Bolt the G4 holder to the spring clip and clip the clamp on the edge of your bag.

[phil75070]

I will have to take a look at that. Thanks for the suggestion!

[GoToTheJoe]

Well after playing with the GG4 for a couple of rounds, I have decided to return it and keep my G002. While I think this will still be a good product, it just didn't meet my expectations in it's early stages. The interface problems and other bugs that have been discussed pretty much sealed it for me.

Something of interest that I can pass along is they said they just received a beta version of the latest GG4 this morning and they offered to send me a new GG4 with this release, out to me to test. I only play once a week so I don't think I am the perfect candidate to do this but for those who play more and would like to see the changes, they might be looking for beta testers today. If you tested it, they would also extend your 30 day guarantee date a few weeks.

[Rickochet]

[quote name='GoToTheJoe' post='1848368' date='Jul 28 2009, 12:39 PM']Something of interest that I can pass along is they said they just received a beta version of the latest GG4 this morning and they offered to send me a new GG4 with this release, out to me to test. I only play once a week so I don't think I am the perfect candidate to do this but for those who play more and would like to see the changes, they might be looking for beta testers today. If you tested it, they would also extend your 30 day guarantee date a few weeks.[/quote]

I find this very interesting. If they are offering a replacement unit wouldn't that suggest that they have made some hardware changes? If not, why wouldn't they just offer a beta firmware upgrade that you could download online? It makes me think I have an inferior unit already.