GolfBuddy aim W11 GPS Watch Review

GolfBuddy aim W11 GPS Watch Review

GolfBuddy has made some key improvements on its aim W11 over its predecessor, the aim W10, and the brand continues to pack a punch as one of the best golf watches (opens in new tab) on the market at an affordable price.

The first noticeable difference versus the Aim W10 is the new ceramic bezel that adorns the outside of the aim W11. This is an excellent aesthetic improvement and creates an altogether more premium look that is much less distracting on the eye than the previous bezel.

Pre-loaded with 40,000 courses worldwide, the aim W11 comes charged and ready to go out of the box. The GPS knows exactly what course you are on and loads quickly. Throughout the round, the watch also knows exactly what hole you are on, vibrating every time you get to the next tee box.

We've tried this on several courses across the UK now and found it quickly finds the correct course and were impressed to see how accurate the mapping was on our home course. Much of the bread and butter functionality of this GPS watch has remained the same versus the aim W10 and the single button on the upper right of the watch makes this an easy watch to use, with the touchscreen doing much of the heavy lifting when it comes to functionality.

Having one button is really straightforward and the touchscreen is fairly responsive, although we found it a bit laggy on occasion when swiping left and right. On the wrist, it weighs 50g and we found it took a bit of getting used to with its overall size. When we did adjust to the overall footprint of the watch it became second nature, but it is worth noting there are lighter and smaller GPS watches out there.

The aim W11 is loaded with features - so many we can't go into full detail on them all - which all thoroughly enhance the experience out on the golf course. We found it genuinely saved us a couple of shots on course, especially in places where we might have airmailed a green or blocked ourselves out of a dogleg if we hadn't had the hole map and yardages available to us.

To discuss the headline features on the aim W11, it has the classic front, middle and back yardages as well as carry yardages to the front and back hazards, a clear and accurate map of the hole and shot distance tracking. Accurate distances are incredibly useful whether you're playing a new golf course or a your home course. If you regularly play on new courses the accurate map of the each hole will help massively with strategy.

We first tested the W11 on the new course at Essendon Country Club, a course that has been designed with two greens on each hole. Despite this unique course design feature, we were pleasantly surprised to find the aim W11 was aware of this and in fact has a dedicated feature that allows you to switch between greens depending on which you are playing.

It was the only GPS watch in our group that has this functionality so scored major points versus its competitors on this front. It was frustrating that two of the features - slope calculation and green undulation - are only available on select golf courses in Korea, Japan and some in the US, so we weren't able to properly test that functionality here in the UK.

Regardless, this GolfBuddy rangefinder (opens in new tab) offers solid performance and comes in at a price that is pretty reasonable in the golf watch market. That being said you can find cheaper models out there as well so make sure you take a look at our best value golf watches (opens in new tab) guide as well, which actually features the W10 model.