Bushnell Neo Golf GPS Reviews

Everything it is advertised to be - compact, easy to use, excellent battery life, accurate, and reasonably priced. I know exactly which club to hit every time. Only feature that would be nice to include is automated scoring - but for a distance finder at this price it does everything it needs to do.

This is a great device and does just what it says it will do. I found that the scorecards at my local golfing spot are off up to 30 yards and the NEO was spot on. It did help my score since I modified my club selection. The yardage finder, where you can tell how far you hit your clubs, works great and is very easy to use. Overall an outstanding product for the price and convienence.

I hunted for several weeks and was looking at either Laser Rangefinders or GPS. The reviews on both make it a tough decision. I just got the NEO 2 weeks ago. For about $200 less than any other device I can’t imagine anything better. It gives you Front Center and Back yardages as well as other hazards, traps, etc…(although some courses don’t have these loaded. Most do so far) I went out with a friend who has a Bushnell Laser Range finder and every yardage was within a yard!!! The best part of the Bushnell is having a yardage when you can’t see the pin (lasers can’t do this). There have been several times already I have been in a different fairway or some other place and was able to hit a green because I finally had a correct yardage from a place without a view of the green. It speeds up play, gives you alot more confidence and at this point I can’t image playing without one.

A great product, but for Ontario,Canada, which has close to 400 golf courses in the province, not enough of them are GPS ready for this product (especially the major ones). But, like I said, for the product itself, a great product.

Useful little unit though the belt clip it comes with is a liability as the unit unclips itself very easily and is lost. Problem is that there’s no secure lug on the unit so I ended up using velcro fastners in order to attach it more securely to my bag / trolley. Seriously inadequate design here.

Glitchy software and not much help from support. You’d think that the packaged software would come with the latest edition of the iGolf program. Took me 6 hours to sort it all out. A pain and I’m not the only one to have had this problem either.

Would I recommend it? Probably not for the lack of decent attachment to you / your bag and out of date software.

The most important issue when selecting a golf GPS unit is the availability and accuracy of course data. Many of the more advanced (and more expensive) units (e.g. Callaway M-Pro and Sonocaddie) require a much more detailed level of course data in order for you to benefit from the expense. I found that this level of data was available for none of the courses I play regularly, so I decided to go for a simpler solution.
The next most important consideration is whether (and how easily) you can “map” your own points on a course. Not all of even the more expensive units allow this and while it is somewhat less likely that you will need to do so with these units, I can assure you that even the best mapping data will occasionally be inaccurate or missing altogether. This can really reduce the value of a GPS unit on courses that you play frequently.
I very nearly returned the Neo because of some short-comings in this area - specifically, you cannot “delete” a custom point if they provide it in their data download. This is truly a silly restriction. You can “override” an existing point by registering a different point, bu why not allow a simple deleetion. One of the holes I downloaded had a “pre-programmed” custom point for a creek that did not exist ! Another annoyance is that, while they provide the ability to define your own “names” (labels) for your custom points, this must be done as part of the procedure for registering the point on the course. Creating a label is a cumbersome process which simply takes too long while actually playing a hole. It would be so much easier if you could use their “default” label to do the initial mapping on the course and then edit the label back at home after the round.
In the end, I decided to keep the unit as it is mostly accurate (+/- 5 yards), it is very compact but with a legible display (even for us older folks), it is fast to start up and the battery is rechargeable with a very good life. Mainly though, I kept it because the price is very reasonable.
My final comment is that you really need both a simple GPS unit like the Neo AND a simple rangefinder to get the precise distance to the pin location. If your course has large greens, the pin location “indicator” for the day is usually not precise enough for the final approach shot. Maybe one day someone will come out with a combination unit !