CaddyAid Review

4 out of 5 Caddyaid GPS 11 May 2010

By Wottak

Purchased a CaddyAid GPS approximately 2 years ago. I found that the downloading of courses and setting up was fairly simple and was very impressed with all of the features the system has. One of the most useful I find is the ability to pinpoint any part of the course including the pin position on a green. Also, if you do go slightly 'of piste' you can still get accurate distance readings to enable you to get back in play more easily. Another useful feature is the ability to set a lay up distance. This lets you know how far it is to your favourite distance from the green to play from. The CaddyAid will also tell you the distance to the front and back of any hazard or feature on the course including ditches and trees etc. Another feature is that because you have an actual photgraph of the hole you are playing, if you lose the GPS signal you can still use it by manually pointing to your position. It will then tell you the distances to all of the points as before. The down side to the CaddyAid is that in bright sunlight it is almost impossible to view the screen. They do sell a case for it but it is expensive and in my opinion not very well designed. The case has black sides to it to block out as much daylight as possible, however it does not open far enough (certainly nowhere near as far as the photo indicates on their website) and it is therefore quite awkward to reach the top of the screen with the stylus. I took this up with CaddyAid but they said that they restricted the opening of the new cover to allow less light through. A valid point you may think, however the simple addition of another zip pull onto the existing zip would enable the cover to open to any angle the user requires. A suggestion which was met with a lengthy silence! Was it a good idea but they didn't want to admit it? Having said that, apart from the odd glitch occasionally, I do find it very useful and pretty accurate. I often compare distances with friends who have alternative measuring devices and they are generally very similar, however the CaddyAid has other features which they do not. All in all, worth the money and even better value if you already have your own GPS PDA as you can buy just the software if you wish.