Skycaddie SG5 v. SGX

[crope1]

Ok, I am not real savvy about the golf GPS items, however I have decided to buy 1. I am down to deciding between the SGX and the SG5. I know the SGX is brand new, but what are the important differences between the 2? I am not sure there is enough of a difference for me to spend the extra $100 on the SGX. Thanks!

[youraway2]

My 2.5 does all that I need.

[taylormade113]

I have a SG5 and my father has the 2.5. You and him sound very similar in terms of tech savy. If that is the case for the price a 2.5 is awesome. If you want color get the 5 or the 3.5. The 5 has the rechargeable battery and the 3.5 uses 3 AAA's.

[TCMP]

My 2.5 does everything you need and more

[ChappyEight]

[quote name='crope1' date='16 April 2010 - 03:36 PM' timestamp='1271446619' post='2383664']
Ok, I am not real savvy about the golf GPS items, however I have decided to buy 1. I am down to deciding between the SGX and the SG5. I know the SGX is brand new, but what are the important differences between the 2? I am not sure there is enough of a difference for me to spend the extra $100 on the SGX. Thanks!
[/quote]

Right now, not a huge difference. With the coming updates to the SGX, I would venture to say that in 6 months, it will be the premier unit.

That being said, the other guys are right, the most basic will give you the yardage info you need. SG5, SGX and others like it are prettier to look at and tend provide more 'graphical' type information.

So, each person has to decide if they just want the numbers or if they want a little more. You can't really go wrong either way because in the end, it's a tool to aid your game, so whatever helps [i]you[/i].

[TM_HOYER]

Sorry to the 2.5 fans but the SG5 and SGX are not in same league. Having owned a SG3, do not, I repeat do not get a grayscale screen like the 2.5. If you are looking to save a few bucks, get the SG3.5. I will have a full review Sunday of the SGX and will do many comparisons to the SG5 as that is what I upgraded from. From initial impressions and playing around with the SGX, it has a larger screen (about twice the size) with better color , brighter screen, and easier to read text. The keys on the SG5 are better and I prefer the disk on the SG5 to the small joystick on the SGX. For courses that do not have Holevue, you get Quickvue with the SG5 but not with the SGX (but Quickvue is worthless IMO). On the SGX you can use Holevue to move a cursor to get distances to any spot on the hole instead of only landmarks on a list. You can store up to 50 courses on a SGX and 20 on a SG5. In a couple months you will be able to buy RFID tags that the SGX will be able to use to track distances you hit each club automatically which will not be available on the SG5. Plus as it gathers yardage data, it will be able to tell you which clubs you hit that are around the distance you have left.

One other thing, as features evolve over the next year or two, the SGX will be able to handle them, where older models will not because of the lack of memory and or processing power.

[pavlam05]

According to the skygolf website though; aren't they intending to make features like holeview and intelligreen pro available on the sg5 as well? If so, than the only major difference would be the RFID tags.

[firegolfer]

I dont think that the hole view will be interactive on the SG5 like on the SGX. On the SG5 it will show you the hole. On the SGX, you can use the cursor and zoom functions and plan where you want to hit your drive or any other shot based on the leave yardage that you want. Or if you are at a point where you need to hit a safe shot or layup, you hit the mark button and then put the cursor where you think you want to land your shot and it gives you that distance and then the remaining distance to the hole from the new spot!

Ultimately that was one of the big reason I bought the SGX. I used it yesterday and loved that function. I had a long par 5 and had to decide if I really wanted to try and hit a 3 wood 235 yards with hazards in front of and on both sides of the green, or if a layup would be better. Looking at the hole view, I picked the nice fat part of the fairway with the cursor and found that if I hit a nice smooth 7 iron, it would give me a perfect gap wedge of 115 yards to the back part of the green where the flag was.

After following the plan and hitting a smart shot to the layup distance and a decent shot to the left side of the green, I still managed to screw up the putt and not birdy the hole. But at least I didn't hit the hazards or lose my ball doing something that I really should'nt.

Anyway, just my experience with some great new options.

Hit em straight and long.

[pavlam05]

[quote name='firegolfer' date='18 April 2010 - 11:18 PM' timestamp='1271650701' post='2387362']
I dont think that the hole view will be interactive on the SG5 like on the SGX. On the SG5 it will show you the hole. On the SGX, you can use the cursor and zoom functions and plan where you want to hit your drive or any other shot based on the leave yardage that you want. Or if you are at a point where you need to hit a safe shot or layup, you hit the mark button and then put the cursor where you think you want to land your shot and it gives you that distance and then the remaining distance to the hole from the new spot!

Ultimately that was one of the big reason I bought the SGX. I used it yesterday and loved that function. I had a long par 5 and had to decide if I really wanted to try and hit a 3 wood 235 yards with hazards in front of and on both sides of the green, or if a layup would be better. Looking at the hole view, I picked the nice fat part of the fairway with the cursor and found that if I hit a nice smooth 7 iron, it would give me a perfect gap wedge of 115 yards to the back part of the green where the flag was.

After following the plan and hitting a smart shot to the layup distance and a decent shot to the left side of the green, I still managed to screw up the putt and not birdy the hole. But at least I didn't hit the hazards or lose my ball doing something that I really should'nt.

Anyway, just my experience with some great new options.

Hit em straight and long.
[/quote]


From what I've heard, there are only certain courses for which the holeview and intelligreen pro features are available. Is this the case? Or am I "mis-remembering" what I heard?

[golf_fanatik]

Check out the course database, it tells you which courses have holevue. They are adding this feature at a rate of "hundreds per month" according to them.

In my area, about 30% have the feature. But the previous poster is right, you can't interact with the hole view in the SG5, only the SGX.

[pavlam05]

Does the SGX have the push-button club distance measurement feature that the other models have...meaning, you push the button on the left side from the tee box then to the landing spot to get the distance you hit the shot? I don't know that, if I went with an SGX, that I would want to get the RFID tags.

[firegolfer]

Yes, you can mark at the teebox and then see how far you hit your drive. In the future, you are supposedly able to then mark again and tell it which club you hit and it will keep track of that as well. It's not known if that will only work with the RFID tags or if you can do it with just the gps. Some of the iphone apps can already do that.

Using the sg mobile on your iphone, you can use that yardage from your gps, but it adds a lot more stats that you can track.

[hillrat0917]

Bump

I just want to bump this thread because I too was wondering if the SGX is worth the price when I can get a SG5 for 199.99 refurbished. It looks like the SG5 has everything the SGX has except for a better screen, quicker GPS location, RFD for club selector and stat tracker.

So does anyone really love their SGX so much that they feel it blows the SG5 out of the water? Is it worth the price jump? Or is the SG5 a good product as well and people are pleased with it.

Has anyone gone back to the SG5 from the SGX after having it? Also, why wouldn't I just get golflogix on the smart phone, do people find the yardages that much more accurate?

[Sub-80]

[quote name='hillrat0917' date='26 April 2010 - 11:24 AM' timestamp='1272299096' post='2401571']
Bump

I just want to bump this thread because I too was wondering if the SGX is worth the price when I can get a SG5 for 199.99 refurbished. It looks like the SG5 has everything the SGX has except for a better screen, quicker GPS location, RFD for club selector and stat tracker.

So does anyone really love their SGX so much that they feel it blows the SG5 out of the water? Is it worth the price jump? Or is the SG5 a good product as well and people are pleased with it.

Has anyone gone back to the SG5 from the SGX after having it? [b]Also, why wouldn't I just get golflogix on the smart phone,[/b] do people find the yardages that much more accurate?
[/quote]

I can't verify this, even though I know the app you are referring to. I've heard a big issue is battery drainage on the phone. The SGX is probably better suited for days you are going to play 36 holes (which we do often on golf trips). I'm not sure if the iphone/smart phone battery would hold up that long. Could be wrong though....

[ShutterBugSteve]

Here's my 2 cents as an owner of both the SG5 and the SGX...

I've only played one round with the new SGX, but I definitely think it [i]will be [/i]the better product. Why do I say "will be"? Well, once the course catalog is populated with courses that utilize Interactive HoleVue, there will be no comparison between the 2 devices. Right now, if the courses you play have not yet been mapped for Interactive HoleVue, there is no compelling reason to spend the money on the SGX. You will only get Target List view on the SGX which is no better (but no worse) than that on the SG5.

Luckily for me, the courses I play most have already been mapped for HoleVue. There really is nothing better than this in my mind.

Once all the courses are converted and the SmartClub tags come to market (assuming they don't cost an arm and a leg), the SGX will really shine.

If you want to be an early adopter, realize that the product is not 100% ready for prime time yet. I bought mine knowing this and was (and still am) prepared for all the growing pains that any new product will go through when first released. If you want something that works great right out of the box, I'd probably suggest getting the SG5 for now.

[jnradioactive]

Question about the holevue:

I just got my SGX, unfortunately it arrived while i was down in Myrtle so I had to use my SG5 down there. I got back to NJ on Sunday and its been raining here ever since.

So I have just been playing around with the SGX in demo mode with a course that has HoleVue and it seemed I could only move the cursor around and one end stay fixed on the green so everything was relative to yardage to the green.

I thought/hoped that i would be able to move the cursor to any point on the hole from where I was standing and it would tell me yardage to that point. For instance one of the courses down there had a double 90° dogleg driver off the tee would put you through the fairway on into the woods so would a 3 wood, but too short off the tee and you did not have a shot to the 2nd 90° turn because of trees.

So i was hoping i would be able to use the cursor to tell me how far to the 1st turn then how far to the 2nd 90° instead of trying to decipher some of the hieroglyphics they use in target view.

So am i dreaming or was this just not working because i was 4 miles from the course? Seemed like it might work because there was a 1st number that always read 999 then from there to the green it would say 230 or something depending on where i moved it.

Guess I'll find out his weekend but the suspense is killing me...

[ChappyEight]

jn, it should do what I think you're wanting it to do. It sounds to me like you weren't actually in demo mode, hence the first number being 999.

Check out my tutorial on how to actually get into Demo Mode by clicking [b][url="http://clubsg.skygolf.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2973&highlight=demo+mode"]here[/url][/b]. It's a bit convoluted because there's a specific order of steps to actually get into demo mode.

See if that works better for you (i.e. the 999 actually becomes numbers from the tee box).

[addage]

I've only used my SGX for one round, and the course I played did not have HoleVue, but already I can tell it's miles better than my SG3. The SGX was very quick to pick up a signal and held it, while lately my SG3 has had a hard time keeping locked. Also, the SGX is much faster to calibrate distance once I stop walking or stop the cart.

[firegolfer]

[quote name='jnradioactive' date='26 April 2010 - 06:35 PM' timestamp='1272328526' post='2402692']
Question about the holevue:

I just got my SGX, unfortunately it arrived while i was down in Myrtle so I had to use my SG5 down there. I got back to NJ on Sunday and its been raining here ever since.

So I have just been playing around with the SGX in demo mode with a course that has HoleVue and it seemed I could only move the cursor around and one end stay fixed on the green so everything was relative to yardage to the green.

I thought/hoped that i would be able to move the cursor to any point on the hole from where I was standing and it would tell me yardage to that point. For instance one of the courses down there had a double 90° dogleg driver off the tee would put you through the fairway on into the woods so would a 3 wood, but too short off the tee and you did not have a shot to the 2nd 90° turn because of trees.

So i was hoping i would be able to use the cursor to tell me how far to the 1st turn then how far to the 2nd 90° instead of trying to decipher some of the hieroglyphics they use in target view.

So am i dreaming or was this just not working because i was 4 miles from the course? Seemed like it might work because there was a 1st number that always read 999 then from there to the green it would say 230 or something depending on where i moved it.

Guess I'll find out his weekend but the suspense is killing me...


[/quote]


Once you are on the course and "mark" where you are, you can then move the cursor and it will show you the distance from your location to where you move the cursor and then the remaining distance to the hole. It worked great for me the other day planning out a par 5. I just missed the putt after playing smart golf to get there!

[hillrat0917]

Thanks, interactive hole view seems nice. It does seem that if you give the SGX another year it will really shine. However for just this golf season. the SG5 seems like a safe bet

[JimofTroy]

[quote name='ShutterBugSteve' date='26 April 2010 - 03:16 PM' timestamp='1272320166' post='2402387']Once all the courses are converted and the SmartClub tags come to market (assuming they don't cost an arm and a leg), the SGX will really shine.[/quote]

I spoke with a SkyCaddie rep today he said that the expected price will be about $10 each.

[eyeguy]

Smartclub tags sound cool and technologically advanced. But can anyone explain the benefit in actual golf stats? Is it going to tell us something we don't already know? Wouldn't most golfers already have an idea of how far each club goes? Since the skycaddie can't tell if the shot was hit well or poorly, the actual numbers generated may not be that accurate or relate to your true shot distances. Am I missing something on what paying $10 per club would provide?

[jnradioactive]

We don't need anything else to make people slower than they already are out there. Ive already noticed people wasting time on the next tee box trying to enter the score and putts and if they missed the fairway and if they missed it left or right, entering it wrong and starting over etc... instead of teeing of and getting out of my way.

They are starting to add too much crap, knowing the yardage right away helped speed things up now some of the other features that are adding are taking that time right back. Next I'll be behind some idiot trying to look up his smart tags stats so he can decide what club to hit 100yds....

[InTheHole]

I think the smart tags technology is already out there on the golf course, in front of you, playing slowly... instead of using his GPS, it's the guy fumbling with a notebook.

It's the same player and the same personality. Maybe the automation will take the notebook out of his hand and speed him up a bit.

Maybe it will allow some other players to hit the correct club from 165 and actually hit the green instead of being macho man with the wrong club and dunking it in the water or the bushes, thus wasting way more time.

There are, and always will be, slow players. And just like the 75 red lights I hit on the way to the golf course, they will always be "in front of me." (In fact, the number of red lights you get caught at is inversly proportional to how many minutes remain until your scheduled tee time.)

I applaud any system that gives players [i]real[/i] information. That can only be good Most people [i]think[/i] they know how far they hit each club.

[whchoclte]

I went from SG5 to SGX now to garmin not totally blown away by any unit.

[b]Overhead view:[/b]
I think garmin has it right here. Gives the measurements on the view itself no messing around with a whole other screen. The SGX and SG5 do a godo job but it gets rather bothersome to keep clicking. Sono caddie does it great also.

[b]Green View:[/b]
SGX and SG5 win here as the Garmin has such small text. It does not show the bunkers and water in green view which i wish Skycaddie would get on. I dont want to zoom in get bunkers and hazards on teh intelligreen screen. Not that difficult. This is my main gripe with the SGX so many screen to go through, why not just add elemnts to one screen.

The SGX i think takes a bit of a step back in how it displays the green view, very stagnant, smaller text than sg5.
I like teh SG5 green view better, easier to read


[b]Accuracy[/b]
They both read teh same give or take 1-2 yards

[b]Other[/b]
I have no issues with charging, size etc. Love teh bigger screen but why have smaller text then. There can be improvements to both.

Wish SGX was a touch screen, so much easier to operate.

[Frank_Dux]

[quote name='firegolfer' date='18 April 2010 - 08:18 PM' timestamp='1271650701' post='2387362']
I dont think that the hole view will be interactive on the SG5 like on the SGX. On the SG5 it will show you the hole. On the SGX, you can use the cursor and zoom functions and plan where you want to hit your drive or any other shot based on the leave yardage that you want. Or if you are at a point where you need to hit a safe shot or layup, you hit the mark button and then put the cursor where you think you want to land your shot and it gives you that distance and then the remaining distance to the hole from the new spot!

[/quote]

I just bought one off ebay for $369. I had a free SG2 given to me with the black/white screen. It's going to be a big upgrade for me and I'm looking forward to it. With the response above, that's a big reason why I need it. When I'm in trouble or in jail, I tend to not know my distances to get back on the fairway and end up getting into another hazard.

Hope it's worth it.

e

[methodmik]

I've read a lot of reviews on the SGX and most of them say there are a lot of bugs in the software. I never had a GPS unit and was thinking about getting a SG5 or the SGX. Did the SG5 have the same issues with software that the SGX seems to have, and if so how long did it take to fix them? I would like to buy a GPS ASAP, but don't want to spend a ton of money now and regret the decision. Bottom line is those that have tried the SG5 and the SGX, is it worth it to jump in now, or should I wait for the bugs to be fixed? How long should I expect to wait until the bugs are all out? I don't want to get to the course and find out the thing doesn't work.

[RCGA]

[quote name='methodmik' date='23 May 2010 - 05:19 AM' timestamp='1274600982' post='2461379']
I've read a lot of reviews on the SGX and most of them say there are a lot of bugs in the software. I never had a GPS unit and was thinking about getting a SG5 or the SGX. Did the SG5 have the same issues with software that the SGX seems to have, and if so how long did it take to fix them? I would like to buy a GPS ASAP, but don't want to spend a ton of money now and regret the decision. Bottom line is those that have tried the SG5 and the SGX, is it worth it to jump in now, or should I wait for the bugs to be fixed? How long should I expect to wait until the bugs are all out? I don't want to get to the course and find out the thing doesn't work.
[/quote]

Buy the SG5 now, used, for ~$150

Use it for the summer and sell it (for ~100 easy)

Buy the SGX in spring 2011 when they're on sale and all the kinks are worked out.

[kencanuck]

Went from SG5 to SGX no problems with software, etc. Just played a round in Vegas on a course that has Hole Vue and the ability to move the cursor makes the X a much more versatile device. The SG5 is great on those courses without Hole Vue but the X comes alive when you can move the cursor to determine the distance between two points.

In another post someone said the power of the X will take a while to be realized and I would agree...go with the SG5 if your home course does not have all the bells and whistles but if it does I would heartily recommend the X.

Ken

[InTheHole]

Hmmmm- I've had my SGX since my pre-order was delivered. Used it on-course a bunch of times. Still haven't seen any bugs.

Maybe I have a special 'non-bug' version of the software?