Billed as “Superior Technology, Advanced Features, Optimum Usability”, the so new it’s not even available yet, uPRO GPS Rangefinder from uPLAY, is poised to kick your current rangefinder’s butt back to the stone age.

What is it about the uPRO that’s going to make you want bury your current unit in the nearest bunker, and tell your wife you need a new one because some hoodlum absconded with yours while you were scarfing down a frankfurter at the turn? In a word, EVERYTHING.

Generally speaking, I don’t use words like hoodlum, abscond, and certainly not frankfurter (not that there’s anything wrong with them), but for reasons I don’t really understand, I felt compelled to assemble them as a group in that previous paragraph. Please don’t hold it against me.

Form

I’ll admit it. I’m shallow. Looks matter to me. I’m not interested in some old and busted boxy GPS unit with a black and white screen, or crayon quality color graphics that look like they were drawn by my buddy’s 3 year old. If you’re the same way, you’ll have no reservations about bringing the new uPRO home to Mama. The design, which reminds me a bit of the Microsoft Zune, is thinner, lighter, and dare I say, sexier than any other golf GPS on the market.

If that’s not enough for you, the uPRO, which is small enough to fit in your pocket or on your belt, features a 2.2″, 320×240, high resolution screen that’s easy to view in even the brightest of sunlight. The design allows for true one hand operation. If you don’t have one hand to operate the device, an add-on software package provides for voice operation. Does your current golf GPS do that?

Features

As beautiful as the uPRO looks, it’s so much more than eye candy. Unlike subscription-based units with their annual charges, the uPRO has no membership fees. Instead, with the per course pricing model, you only pay for the courses you use. The company reportedly already has thousands of courses available for download, with hundreds more being added each month. uPRO will also notify you when new courses are added near you. Unfortunately, the actual list of courses isn’t available yet. I’ll post an update after the list becomes available.

New courses, which can be downloaded from just about any Internet connected computer and added to the device via a USB cable, are available in both Basic and Pro modes.

Basic mode includes Hazard View, which will you show you not only the distance to a hazard, but also the distance you need to clear it. Green View provides precise distances to the front, center, and back of the green. These two features alone match a good number of GPS-enabled rangefinders on the market today, but I’ve only scratched the surface of what the uPRO is capable of.

Pro mode combines high resolution aerial photography and satellite imagery to provide a stunning video flyover of each and every hole. If you’ve watched any major PGA event you’ve seen similar technology at work. Because most of us won’t be playing Augusts, the uPRO brings those same capabilities to the courses we play. The flyover mode shows not only the layout of the hole, it also displays slope and elevation changes, as well as distance markers for 200, 150, and 100 yards. Flyover mode ends by zooming over the green; showing you your ultimate target.

In addition to Hazard View and Green View, Pro mode courses feature Smartview technology which provides 3 distinct view of the hole. The 1^st view shows your likely landing/target area. The 2^nd shows an appropriately positioned and zoomed view of the green. The 3^rd provides a zoomed out view of the entire hole.

Pro Mode also includes a Mark Shot feature which allows the golfer to measure the distance of any shot. Simply press a button to mark your original position. Once you reach your ball, press it again to reveal the actual distance the ball traveled. Ideally, the uPRO would have an ego boost feature which would exaggerate the distance of any shot by 15%, but for now they’re keeping it honest.

Still not sold? Perhaps the coolest feature (although flyover is tough to top), is a hybridization of GPS and laser technology, which the company call Measure Mode. Simply put, Measure Mode, which uses AnyPoint technology, allows the golfer to measure the distance to and from any point on the golf course. As much as I love my Bushnell laser rangefinder, the one major shortcoming is that it requires a true line of sight to my target. I can’t tell you how often I’ve had to run around a tree, or lie on the ground, to try and find a line of sight to my target. I want even get into the occasional problems caused by foreground or background objects.

My Bushnell also can’t tell me exactly what I’ll have left to the green if I lay up 10 yards short of a hazard - at least not until I get there, or how far I’ll have left after I shank it into the pond on the right side of the fairway. With AnyPoint technology you can plan not only your current shot, but also your next shot, which as either Jack Nicklaus, or Willie Ogg (depends which story you want to believe) said, is the most important shot in golf. Because it uses GPS technology, you can precisely measure the distance to any point on the golf course regardless of whether it’s fairway, bunker, or some other spot on the blind side of a dog leg. This is really, really cool stuff.

I don’t yet have pricing info for basic or pro courses. I’d expect the pro versions to be substantially more expensive based on the extended features.

What’s In The Box

The uPRO Golf GPS package includes:

• One free Pro Mode course
• User Guide
• Rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery
• USB Cable

Retail price for the unit, which should hit shelves in April, is $399

Final Thoughts

While it’s tough to make any real evaluation on a product that is little more than vaporwear at the moment, if the uPRO can deliver on its technological promise, and if the number of courses available for download are as extensive as the company claims; with it’s competitive price, it very well could be the must have golf GPS for 2008 and beyond. At the very least, I’d expect the uPRO to drive golf GPS technology as a whole into the next generation.

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