Features:
$ 399.99
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149 of 155 people found the following review helpful
 Fantastic!, By
BadBeatTD (South Country, So Cal) – See all my reviews
Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Garmin Approach S6, Light (Wireless Phone Accessory)
Despite some of the negative reviews, I still purchased this watch and am sooooo happy I did. First, I want to address a few criticisms I read and then I’ll give my own impressions of the watch.
Screen: Touchscreen: Wearability: Battery life: My Impressions: The packaging was very good. Set up was a breeze. The manual that comes in the box is good, but go online and download that version. It’s more complete without being laborious. I have not used the strength meter yet but I have used the tempo training. It’s a great feature and one of the main reasons I bought the watch. I am satisfied that the 3.0 ratio is indeed the optimum rhythm. (Not to be too technical, but it’s actually training your rhythm more so than tempo). My only complaint is volume. The tones are not quite loud enough for me. I have no problem hearing them when all is quiet but if theirs sufficient ambient noise, e.g. background traffic, it’s difficult to hear at address. I don’t know whether the volume can be adjusted. I found that I can hear the tones better when I rotate the watch face to the inside of my wrist. I can’t take away any stars because of this as the unit as a whole is wonderful!
99 of 110 people found the following review helpful
 This beast is not ready for prime time, By
This review is from: Garmin Approach S6, Dark (Wireless Phone Accessory)
First off, I am never on the cusp of new technology. I do not like to be the first one to fork over my hard earned money while the manufacturer works out the kinks. In other words, I do not want to be your guinea pig. That being said, I couldn’t get my mind off of buying this thing so I finally caved in and bought it last Friday. Used it twice this past weekend and so far I am thoroughly unimpressed. There are a ton of features on this watch, problem is, they don’t live up to the hype on one hand, and simply do not work on the other. I’ll start with the good first and conclude with the bad. PROS: – Very lightweight. Sometimes I forget I’m wearing it. That was one of my biggest concerns. I didn’t want anything interfering with my swing. Although this does interfere a bit (see below) it’s not as noticeable as I thought it might be. Unfortunately, the lightness of the watch also makes it feel kind of cheap (also see below). – Pretty stylish. I got the white one and it looks pretty nice even off the course. Wore it to dinner after my round yesterday and you couldn’t even tell it was designed for golf. – Instant distances. I hate having my phone out of my bag for one simple reason: it increases the likelihood it will fall out of my cart, which has actually happened before. Therefore, it was sort of a pain having to take my phone out, turn it on, go to the next hole, walk to the ball, get the reading, turn it back off, secure it back in my bag and then get my club. With this watch, all I have to do it walk up to the ball, get the reading, grab my club and swing. – Hazard distances. This saved me probably at least two or three strokes in one round. I think the way this watch works is if it’s a longer hole, it will give you a look at what is up in front of you at 235 yards. This is a standard measure. That helped me a couple times. For example, where I normally I wouldn’t have even though about taking water 245 yards up into consideration on one hole, I took out a three hybrid instead of my driver as a precaution. Fortunately I did because I shanked the hybrid straight toward the water, but it came up short. With the driver it would have been in. Additionally, you can move the target around to wherever you want on the holes to give you a more accurate reading, but getting it exactly where you want it is difficult since you’re using your finger on a screen that is only four times the size of a regular index finger. – Seeing what the entire hole looks like with an aerial view. This should be obvious. Knowing what kind of hazards are on the hole before your first swing is going to help you strategize the hole. CONS: – The color screen is absolutely nothing like what is seen in the stock photos. The screen is definitely not that vivid. Even when you press the “light” button, it looks nothing like that. The colors look very washed out and faded. – Bluetooth feature does not work most of the time. Like I said above, I like to keep my phone in my bag so it doesn’t fall out of the cart when I’m driving. That obviously means I’m going to miss some calls or texts. Therefore, this was supposed to help me by allowing me to keep my phone in the bag but letting me know when someone is trying to reach me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Worked three times in the confines of my home, but not on the course. In fact, my wife texted I a few times and I never got the texts. I even unpaired and re-paired the devices. Got the first text after that, but none of them afterwards. This renders it useless to me. I’m sure this will be addressed in a firmware update, but like I said, I did not fork over 0+ bucks to be a guinea pig. – Touchscreen is not sensitive. I think this is by design. According to the guidebook, it says the screen is designed to ignore unintended touches. Unfortunately, this means you will have to touch the screen two or three times sometimes to get it to make the selection you wanted. – Slightly interferes with backswing; back of hand presses scorecard button. So like I said above, it’s lightweight so you don’t know you’re wearing it. That is until your backswing. When I cock my left wrist, I can definitely feel it squeezed between my wrist and the back of my hand. By the end of the first round I want to say I got used to it because it really didn’t bother me by then, but I would obviously rather have no interference. Additionally, on the back swing, because there are buttons on the side of the face, you hit the scorecard button (or at least I do). If you have the tone option on, it make a beep right in the middle of your backswing. Kind of annoying. Therefore, the only solution is to turn off the tones or loosen up the watch. I’m definitely not giving up on it yet. I’m going to try it for a few more rounds before make a final decision…
65 of 72 people found the following review helpful
Everything I want, but takes time to learn to fully utilize the features, By
This review is from: Garmin Approach S6, Dark (Wireless Phone Accessory)
I have had the S6 for about 10 days. Have used the Garmin GolfLogic for years and wanted to wait for a watch that provided me the features found in the hand-held. This satisfies that requirement and more. It is certainly more complicated than the GolfLogic and takes some getting use to touching the small screen without you hitting the wrong “button”, but with patience I have figured out how to set my handicap, to practice the swing rhythm and swing speed (very helpful) and to enter scores, putts, fairway (or not) shots. The downside: If you use the handicap feature, the score card does not show your actual score, but rather the variance to par for each hole. The only way that I figured out to eliminate that was to set the handicap to 0 (which I am not). Additionally the putt count is shown in average putts per hole, rather than total putts. Multiplying by 18 corrects that, but I would prefer to see the count in the stats. Still trying to figure out if I can correct a score for a hole in the Garmin Express program on my PC once I have synched the device. In time I should be able to use all the features provided…….in time.
10/27/2014 Update – One feature that I was not pleased with was the difficulty in pinpointing on the small screen the right spot (hazard, bunker, etc.) to get the yardage. However, if you use the tip of a tee, that works just fine. Still not satisfied with the Garmin Express for recording scores as it will not correct scores after the device has been shut down. I have just quit using that feature and record scores on a different golf program. Another note, the swing speed and rhythm features certainly have slowed down my backswing which has increased my ball hitting accuracy. |
