Reviews

I took this to Peru and it got me back to my base camp near Lima from the jungles in northern Peru and from the mountains in southern Peru. It has a 1,000 mile range on it and the memory markers were easy to set. In the states I have used it on the Appalachian trail with no problems at all. I've also used it when visiting cities like Charleston and Savannah when there is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant I want to find again. It is very rugged and the battery is still reliable. As far as accuracy, it gets me within 5 meters of my markers every time.

I parked near a long beach and relied on the Backtrak to guide me back to my car. It took a very long time to locate my initial position. I walked out some distance and turned back. The closer I got to the car, the more it shifted directions. If I'd followed it, I'd have become a pretzel.

Reviews

Amigo o Amiga no te de miedo comprarlo por el precio la exactitud de este GPS es extraordinaria, me ha dado unos resultados increibles. Saludos.

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For the price that I paid for, for the size, for the information that I get, for the fact that I just charge the battery in it and not replace it every other time....does not get better then this. Holds 10 Golf Course at a time, you can add or delete as many as you want. Priceless.

This model was very easy and fun to use the first time I tried it. I was worried I would have to spend a lot of time during the round just trying to figure out how to navigate with it. But, that wasn't the case. My only problem the first time out was not knowing how to access information about custom points on the course. The manual doesn't explain this. Afterwards, I guessed the SCREEN button might be the secret and sure enough that is where you get the data about custom points. The custom point abbreviations are simple to understand, too. The two best things about using the unit are eliminating the time and hassle of finding yardage markers and pacing off distances and the best plus is tracking shot distances. You really do need to know how far you hit each club to use yardage data to the fullest in planning your shots. Better players might need more information and features. But, for a once-per-week hacker, like me, the Neo is perfectly suited and an affordable little gadget you will enjoy having.

I had nothing but problems with this product. I was unable to download the courses I needed and the manufacturer was not much help. And there is a yearly fee you must pay to continue to load golf courses. I returned the product and purchased a different brand and it worked fine.

only negative is that you must advance the holes maunally instead of it updating itself.

Compact, stylish and does what it's designed to do. I thought it had a problem the other day when it showed about 950 yards to the first green. My problem, I had it dialed into an adjacent golf course.

Reviews

Very light weight and easy to use. Makes golfing on different courses much easier. Ability to see how far the pin or an obstacle is make club selection simple.

I purchased the Bushnell Medalist Pinseeker and love it! It is nice and light, uses a single 9 volt battery, which is nice. No charger required so I will just keep a spare battery in my bag. So simple to use, press the power button center the circle on your target and press the button for a second and bam you have your yardage. I currently have a Sky Caddie 2.5 GPS rangefinder and had an earlier model before. The nice part about the Bushnell rangefinder is that you can target in anything on the course not just the yardages that Sky Caddie has entered, you don't have to connect to a pc and download course info and of course there is no annual fee. If you don't mind those things and like a small gps that you can wear on your belt get a Sky Caddie, if you do, get yourself a Bushnell Medalist!

This is the best laser rangefinder out there for the money. Bushnell has other newer (more expensive) models that are really not any better i.e. ones that adjust "slope" for elevation of green are not approved for tournament play according to USGA rules of golf. So this one really is the perfect one out there for the price. Of course there are always those who prefer GPS maps such as "Sky Caddie" etc. Downside on those is annual fee for software and some unavailability of maps for certain courses which is why I prefer the simplicity of a Laser rangefinder. Deadly accurate and super easy to use.

Just purchased this rangefinder a couple of weeks ago. I have used it twice on the golf course. It is nothing short of fantastic! It is easy to use snd I have had no problem locking in on flags from as far away as 250 yards. The accuracy is remarkable. I have no doubt that this device will help to lower my handicap.

I thought I was spoiled by playing at a course with a GPS on the carts, but the pinseeker has been an added pleasure. It's easy to use. Even if your shaking, you'll still get an accurate rating, so someone who is elderly shouldn't have the complaints that I've seen over the years. The advantage this has over the GPS is it gives the exact measurement to the pin, not to the front, middle and rear of the green. Ideally, having both sets of information would be great, but given the choice, the pin measurement is more beneficial. It also works in close whereas the GPS turns off very close and you can't drive on all fairways, especially near the greens, so you can get more consistent with your short game.

Reviews

This unit may or may not end up being useful, but the getting started curve is way too high. First, it is not Mac compatible. If you plug the USB port into a Mac, it won't recognize or mount it. The internal memory is an SD card, so you could probably plug it into an outboard SD card reader; I haven't tried that, not having a reader handy. The product box and literature doesn't say "PC Only" anywhere that I saw. Second, the map download interface is clumsy and simply doesn't work. You outline a map area, save it to some kind of browser pseudo-folder, drag that into a download box, and click download. Nothing happens. You then read the on-line help, which says to turn off popup blocking. Do it all again, and you'll get a popup telling you to please select some sort of directory first. (And it suggests the wrong one, if you're running Vista or WIn7.) And that's it. Poof. No download, no files, no place to select directories, nothing. (This is using Firefox, I refuse to use IE for simple web browsing.) And, just to piss you off, the "Contact Us" emailer from the downloader page produces a "no such email address" message after you've typed in your message and clicked send. The unit itself seems a bit slow, and responds erratically to the arrow buttons; sometimes the left and right buttons don't seem to work. The battery life seems poor, I ran it down halfway just playing with it for an hour. So far, it's been a dud.

I am thoroughly disappointed with this product. The software for use with a PC is difficult to use and understand, and instructions are not helpful. To make this unit useable, you must purchase and download maps- well, my unit goes into a coma and will not respond at all unless I remove the battery. It does show position well, but is hard to navigate with the controls. About all I can get it to do is show me an aerial photo of the Washington monument. It is huge. All of the efforts they took to make it waterproof were a waste because the headphone jack and data port openings have near useless and ineffective caps. After having owned a Garmin etrex legend, it would be hard to imagine a more cumbersome, difficult to use, USELESS and expensive piece of garbage. In addition to making a great Ping Pong paddle, I think it would be a great target for sighting in a rifle.

[...] Mostly there are cons about this unit: The biggest con is that this unit uses a proprietary format for image overlays (aerial as they call it), tracks/trails and topo maps (which are open to public use in electronic form from the USGS). None of the formats is documented. Looking at the image format, it appears to be a modified JPEG EXIF format with some header information removed and some other proprietary data used at the begining of the file. There is no other software that I have found that can create or upload information to the unit besides the accompanying software, which doesn't load popular formats for trails/tracks. This leaves you to manually input waypoints. Supposedly GPSBabel is working on the format but the last post I saw about it was months old. Aquisition of satellites is comparatively slow to popular car GPS models The lower cover that goes over the charging and USB ports is not attached. I lost it after two days. Is the unit weather proof now? The unit shipped with the ear phone cover/insert out of the jack and I have not been able to get it in the jack. Weather proof?? It is attached to the casing though, wonder why they didn't do it for the charging/usb ports. The charging port uses some sort of proprietary connector rather than some standard DC connector. It cannot be charged from the USB port. So, solar charging without an inverter is not an option (that I am aware of certainly). The electronic compass doesn't seem to work at all. If you turn around in place, the compass needle will turn in all sorts of directions. The USB rate is incredibly slow. It took maybe a half hour to load the firmware update. Interestingly, a portion (part 1 of 2) of the firmware available on their website is older than my unit's firmware. When you "safely remove hardware" in windows, the unit still thinks its connected and leaves up a do not disconnect screen. If you try to shut the unit off at this point, it just gets hung with a "shutting down" message. So far, the only thing I can do is remove the power cord and battery to get it back into normal operating mode. The software is horrendous.. It amazes me when someone can design a fairly complicated piece of equipment and then put out such horrible software which is comparatively simple to implement. If you can't make good software, at least publish the file specs so others can create useful software for the device. In this case the bean counters were obviously intent on selling maps rather than a quality device and software. The help menu only has a typical "About.." item. There are folders for overlays, topos and trails but no menu option to add any of those items. The only thing you can do is manually enter way points. The only good point I can speak to at this point is that the battery seems to last fairly long and the device itself is easy to use. I had it on in GPS mode, no XM, no other power saving, with backlight on and it stayed on most of the day. I suspect it will work significantly longer in the "Safe Track" mode. Although, I have tried it in safe track and found that, at least in a car, when the unit is turned on, it still takes some time to figure out where it is. I thought the whole point of Safe Track mode was that it was supposed to stay aquired without using much battery. My only hope is that myself or someone at GPSBabel will be able to bring out the true capability of this hardware.

Overall, the Onix 400 is a big clunky GPS with user-unfriendly software and procedures. As a GPS it falls far behind Garmin. As a radio, you'd do better with a $4 Walmart special. Getting weather at home is better with a Blackberry or Accuweather. In combination, however, the Onix 400 can provide a combination of information I haven't seen anywhere else. I have some experience with GPS as a pilot and as a biker. Plus I like to hike and ski and I have used my Garmin Edge 305 in all of these settings. (I have an old Garmin 150 in my plane that I still like.) I like Garmin for all of the varied purposes because it seems to adapt well, but I was intrigued by Bushnell's integration of weather through XM. Also, the idea of being able to hear satellite radio in the middle of nowhere was pretty inviting. Anyway, I bought the Bushnell Onix 400 as an Xmas gift to myself and began to play with it. Overall, it needs a lot of improvement. Compared to Garmin, some of the GPS functions and the software are back in the dinosaur period. First, the good stuff: I really like the combined navigation, direction, breadcrumbs, radio, weather window. This is much like a "glass cockpit" where you can see a lot of information all at one time. The fact that weather radar overlays on current location is great and a cost savings. The compass moves, keeping north at north. The GPS seems sensitive and holds onto the GPS signal. The ability to customize windows also helps. It feels rugged. It's easy to charge and I've bought a car charger for the times I'm driving to nowhere. The graphics on the trails are good and clear. Problems: (Many) 1. Setting up the system is horrible. Unlike a Garmin, this system isn't very intuitive. You have to flip through a million windows and have to read the instructions ten times. Even then, if you forget, you have to go back and reopen the manual. 2. Downloading maps is a pain, expensive and doesn't seem to work until the 7th or 8th try. The website instructions are cumbersome and require a lot of dragging files. For every step, there are 10 possible mistakes and I think I made them all trying to find the right combination. 3. When downloading, each mistake takes you back to the start, meaning you have to start over from scratch, trying to locate a ten mile square on the map of the US. It's even more cumbersome. 4. Or then again, signing up for XM radio and XM weather could be a trial by fire. I have XM in my car, and so I was "eligible" for discounts. But all I wanted was XM Weather. I had to buy the stations, for $130 a year. Then I was told I would receive a discount for the weather, making it only an extra $4 a month, but I had to go through another telephone number to actually have it downloaded. I had to wait on line for half an hour (due to unusual volume at Xmas). I couldn't sign up on-line --- which of course makes no sense if the only requirement is my credit car and sending a signal. Then I was told that it would actually cost $10 a month and there was no discount. In other words, it all now costs me $250 a year to know if it's going to rain where I am. I'm trying to get this straightened out with XM. 5. The PC Companion is difficult to use. It isn't responsive; it also isn't intuitive or user-friendly. Again, a mistake requires you to go back to the beginning, which I've discovered is in the Atlantic Ocean at longitude 0. Sometimes I found when I pressed a trail, I ended up in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It's curious. 6. Once I actually started using the Onix 400, I found that while it was easy to follow the cursor, it was difficult to flip back and forth to end trails and start new ones. Some disappeared. I found myself pressing one window, then a sub-window, then the hot-button, then finally anything that seemed right. I'm sure I made some mistake, but I didn't discover the mistakes until later, after I lost the very information I wanted to save. I couldn't record my trail, as Garmin easily allows (so long as I don't affirmative erase the information). 7. While the unit is supposed to be somewhat waterproof, the cover on the internet access and charging port falls off with a gentle shake. I had two of them. Now the unit is no longer waterproof. I temporarily fixed the problem with duct tape, but it would be an easier fix by Bushnell by doing (again) what Garmin every camera maker does: put on a permanent port. For something so clunky, the losable cover defeats all of the other efforts at making water resistant. I have a tough time believing that the engineers didn't think this through better. 8. Getting access to the radio is far more difficult than I imagined. Outside, walking, it's erratic at best. In the car, it's also erratic. In the plane, it works only if I hold it to a window. The weather function seems to do better. Bushnell needs to provide an extended antenna that can pick up both GPS and XM. 9. Unlike Garmin, you can't measure the distance traveled. And you can't calculate grade. This seems like such an obvious feature for this type of GPS, again I can't believe the engineers didn't consider it. In short, I think the Bushnell Onix 400 is ok, but not great. The folks at Bushnell need to learn from the other GPS manufacturers, especially Garmin, how to make things simpler and easier to use. Bushnell has a great idea, but the product needs a lot of work. Bushnell Onix400 GPS XM Receiver

This is an overall great unit for what I use it for. I don't use the XM or Weather functionality yet but I will in the near future when I start using it on my kayak for ocean fishing. I give it 4 stars simply because I don't know how XM and Weather work yet. For everything else it's 5 stars all the way. (For outdoor activity use. I wouldn't use it for road navigation.) I've used this for Geo Caching, Hiking, Hunting,and Kayaking and so far it works great. The aerial maps from Bushnell are very detailed and provide a great perspective on the land around you. The downfall is that you must purchase the maps only from Bushnell. Not a big deal overall but they are a bit tricky to download initially. Once you learn how to do it it's not bad. The ability to customize the display and layer maps and info on top of each other is awesome. Additionally, its very comfortable in your hand and has one of the largest display screens available for a hand held GPS. A minor inconvenience is that you must use the proprietary battery that comes with the unit rather than generic AA's. This hasn't been an issue for me since the battery life is quite long with the Lithium rechargable battery supplied and I haven't been able to deplete it yet with over 8 hours of continuous use on most days. I recommend using the battery saver function of the unit if you really want to get long length out of it, it greatly improves the amount of time you have. I plan on buying an additional battery in the near future for longer trips and for ensuring I have enough juice for the weather function when I'm out in the Gulf of Mexico. They are availabe both directly from Bushnell for $44 and also on Amazon for around $34. For Geo caching it's a good unit once you load in the locations, however, you have to manually enter each one. If you want something specifically for Geo Caching there are other units with more specialized downloading ability and you will probably be happier with them. Overall, I love this GPS and will be loyal to Bushnell for a long time because of it. (If you get one you may want to ensure you get a "Gen 2" version if it's available. It has everything the 'Gen 1" does but also includes a function that shows peak fishing and hunting times.) (Also- If you don't need the XM or Weather functionality I'd look at the Onix 350 since it's much less expensive but with all the other features of the 400.)

Reviews

Bought this product because i lost my garmin. What a mistake!!!!!!!!! Basemap is has nothing on it. Takes for ever to lock on to satallites. screen got scratched wiping the rain off of it with a soft glove. Tried to have bushnell refund my money got no support took them a week to even respond to my e-mail.

I could never get topo maps to download to the unit. I was on the phone with Busnell for over an hour and they were suppose to call me back. Never did. I also learned that you can only download a very small area at a time. So I bought a Garmin Colorado 400T instead. It has the entire USA topo maps pre-loaded!!

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Works great as advertized - this is my second unit - first one is still in use and I didn't want to share -Have used it locally and also while flying (local flying club). Used it for hunting this year in an area I have never been in before and it easily got me and my deer out. Great unit.

By the time you make this device find the satalite you will find the car on your own. Not something I would buy again. Bought two, one for me and one as a gift. Too embarresed to give to anyone.

I can't believe how easy this thing is to use, and how accurate it is. I tried this thing on several large malls parking lot. After marking where I parked my car and turning the unit off, at some point and time when I was ready to leave I turned on the backtracker to get a satelite signal. After a minute or two I was able to get a signal lock even inside the mall! When I headed back towards my car, the arrow pointed towards where my car is, and the number of distance decreases. Sometimes the arrow didn't point exactly where my car is, instead I looked at the number of distance remaining. As long as the numbers decreases, you know you're getting closer. When I got closer and closer to my car, the arrow pointed more towards my car. Once I'm at my car the 0 appears with all the arrows around the display. The accuratecy of this thing is +- 2 feet! The compass is also accurate as it displays number of degrees in heading. This device is so easy to use and it is the best thing to have to find your car, place of interest in a large, or unknown area. It's also great for knowing where you're heading in compass mode.

I was excited to try this product - but when I got it - I was very disappointed - the back cover where the battery is located has a very flaky cover - you dont know if its closed and locked or unlocked. It works fine but I am convinced if you have to interact with the back for battery replacement it will be a goner.

I love this product. I bought it for my husband for Christmas and he loves it. Since we have used it on a trip to Florida, just to test it out and he used it on a camping trip with a few of his buddies and is completely satisfied. We plan on using it over the summer on another camping trip and can't wait. I would recommend it for anyone. Neat gadget! And great little tool.