Garmin Approach S60 Review

Our Verdict

With a bright screen, long battery life, authentic course maps and more, the Garmin S60 is a pricey merely invaluable assistance for tech-minded golfers.

For

• Authentic distances to any location, including hazards
• Intuitive interface
• Access to forty,000 courses
• Excellent battery life
• Phone notifications tin can be disabled for uninterrupted play
• Looks great and very comfortable

Confronting

• Expensive
• Only indicates if the prevarication is uphill or downhill, while a range finder tin can give actual elevation measurements

Tom'southward Guide Verdict

With a bright screen, long bombardment life, accurate course maps and more, the Garmin S60 is a pricey but invaluable aid for tech-minded golfers.

Pros

• +

  Accurate distances to whatever location, including hazards

• +

  Intuitive interface

• +

  Access to 40,000 courses

• +

  Excellent battery life

• +

  Phone notifications tin can exist disabled for uninterrupted play

• +

  Looks great and very comfortable

Cons

• -

  Expensive

• -

  Only indicates if the lie is uphill or downhill, while a range finder can give actual acme measurements

Admittedly, I've been a skeptic of GPS golf watches, always finding a range finder to be more than precise and convenient — and less expensive. And quite a few of my golf game buddies share my point of view. However, after wearing the $400 Garmin Arroyo S60 for a handful of rounds, including a 36-hole twenty-four hour period, it might be time to get out the range finder at habitation.

The golf-specific smartwatch from Garmin offers all the features gorging golfers and fitness fanatics need to navigate their way around the course.

Since conducting this Garmin Approach S60 review, Tom'south Guide tested out its newer variant, the $500 Approach S62. Read our full Garmin Approach S62 review to encounter if its Virtual Caddie feature and longer battery life make it worth the $100 premium.

Garmin Approach S60: Setup and Configuration

Information technology took me less than 10 minutes to consummate the initial setup of the Arroyo S60. I followed the on-screen prompt to download the Garmin Connect app to my phone, created a free account and used a Bluetooth connection to sync the S60 with my new Garmin Connect account. From this bespeak forward, just nearly every setting is controlled from the watch.

Garmin Approach S60: Pattern and interface

Although the Approach S60 doesn't look particularly sleek or flashy, it has a clean design and black matte end that looks great both during fitness activities and as a bones everyday smartwatch.  At i.8 ounces, it'south also lightweight and comfortable to clothing throughout a round. The round i.2-inch bear on screen is large enough to view and interact with the widgets when wearing a glove or when drenched in sweat (it worked in the puddle, too — the sentry is h2o-resistant to 165 anxiety), and was perfectly clear, even in direct sunlight.

Overall, the S60 is piece of cake to navigate. Three buttons on the right side let you select activities and motility through menus. Unlike most of Garmin's GPS watches, the S60 has a touch screen, which yous tin can utilize to swipe through a few basic widgets that summarize daily activities, weather and your final round played. The golf app follows the same full general flow and has drill-downwardly capabilities from a round summary down to the gild selection and distances for each stroke.

More than: GPS Watch Buying Guide

Garmin Approach S60: Golf game features

From the starting time tee, I had no issues using the sentinel'southward GPS to locate any of the courses I played since Garmin claims support for 40,000 courses in the U.South. At the start of each pigsty, the display has the standard yardages to the forepart, center and back of the green. Information technology also shows the elevation relative to the green and has a compass to point you in the direction of the hole during blind shots. Zooming in and out to view hazards and check distances to anywhere on a hole proved to be useful in a number of situations, specially on a course that I hadn't played before. For approach shots, in that location's a "greenish view" where the pin placement can be adjusted using the touch screen to get even more precise distances.

The GPS features of the S60 exceeded my expectations. To validate its precision, I did an informal comparison of the distances provided by the S60 against a high-end range finder and a few apps available on the Apple tree Watch two. While the S60 and range finder were consistently inside a few yards of each other, the Apple Sentinel occasionally dropped the GPS connection and wasn't reliable plenty to use on the course.

There are however advantages to a range finder for more precise distance and peak measurements, simply the overall reliability of the S60's measurements from tee to green coupled with the hole-view features make a disarming case to go out the range finder in the purse.

Garmin Approach S60: Battery life and other Features

After each of the start iv rounds I played wearing the S60, the battery never fell below lx percent. Naturally, I thought this justified testing the battery over a 36-hole day of golf. While not advertised past Garmin for use over back-to-back rounds, the S60, which started the mean solar day fully charged, was nonetheless kick at half-dozen per centum by time I was in the clubhouse. The sentinel probably would have had more life left if I had paused the golf app between rounds.

The S60 is too equipped with a few additional golf features, such every bit the selection to record each club used, adjust scores for handicap and keep score of playing partners using a few different formats. It also comes with a swing tempo app, which is supposed to fourth dimension backswing and downswing, only this requires the TruSwing sensor ($149, sold separately) that attaches to your club. Honestly, I'grand going to a golf simulator for whatever avant-garde swing metrics.

One complaint with previous versions of Garmin's software was the disability to view and edit scores for individual holes during the circular. Garmin resolved that with a scorecard view that you lot tin can access at any point with the touch on of the side button. You tin can also set up the watch to approximate at how many swings y'all took from tee to light-green. While it won't count putts, the feature might exist useful for some of those golfers who get amnesia and don't seem to recollect exactly how many strokes they took.

In improver to the golf and fettle features, the Approach S60 comes with smartwatch-similar features for those who would wear it every mean solar day.  It's like shooting fish in a barrel to change the lookout man face using the Connect app, and you tin can configure which notifications you'll  receive from your telephone.  I ready mine to show notifications for calls, text messages, Instagram comments, Google maps and from my news feed.  The focused golfer will appreciate that none of the notifications come through while the golf app is active.

MORE: 10 Most Surprising Uses for Fitness Trackers

Garmin Arroyo S60: Verdict

Although my game didn't meliorate while wearing Garmin's Arroyo S60, I practice recollect the avid golfer has a audio culling to a range finder with many of the necessary bells and whistles that we've come to await from smartwatches. At $400, the S60 isn't cheap, only it looks cool, is super-reliable, and it has all the golf game and smartwatch features to justify that cost.

Epitome Credit: Garmin

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/garmin-approach-s60,review-4546.html

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