Mileseey GenePro G1 review: the rangefinder that swallowed a GPS watch

You already carry two devices that will not talk to each other. There is a laser in the bag that tells you the number to the flag, and a watch on your wrist that tells you the shape of the hole, and neither one knows what the other one knows. Every golfer has quietly accepted this as the natural order of things, in the way you accept that the shower has a hot setting and a cold setting and nothing in between.

The Mileseey GenePro G1 is what happens when somebody refuses to accept it. It is a laser rangefinder with a 2.13 inch AMOLED touchscreen bolted onto the side, running full hole maps from 43,000 preloaded courses. On paper that sounds like a solution hunting for a problem. In the hand it is the most interesting thing to happen to this category in years, and I did not expect to be writing that sentence.

What it actually does

The laser end is not an afterthought, which was my first worry. You get a 0.1 second flag lock, slope, 6x magnification, a choice of red or green display and a maximum range of 1300 yards, which is roughly four times further than you will ever need and exists mainly so it can be printed on the box. The screen end gives you hole maps, green views and front, middle and back numbers, and there is a triangulation mode that puts the laser and the GPS to work together. Battery is USB-C and runs to around 24 hours, so four or five rounds between charges.

Why the screen is not a gimmick

Here is the case for it, and it is stronger than I expected. A laser answers exactly one question, extremely well: how far away is the thing I am pointing at. What it cannot do is tell you about what you cannot see. The carry over the corner of the dogleg. Where the green actually begins when the flag sits over a rise. How much room is behind the pin before the trouble starts. That is a GPS job, and it is precisely why so many of us ended up owning both and carrying both.

Putting them in one body is not a gimmick. It is the obvious idea that the established brands have had no commercial reason to build, because they would much rather sell you a laser and then sell you a watch.

The catch, and it is a real one

The app. It is comfortably the weakest part of the package, clunky to move around and thin on data, and if you are the sort of golfer who wants rounds logged, sliced and charted afterwards then this is not the ecosystem for you. Garmin and Shot Scope will bury it on software and it is not close. The hardware is excellent and the software is an afterthought, which is the exact reverse of the trade most golf tech asks you to make, and how you feel about this device comes down almost entirely to which of the two you actually care about.

The price question

At $650 RRP this is serious money for a brand most golfers have never heard of, and I would not pay RRP for it. It gets discounted often and it is worth waiting for one of those. At full price you are standing in Bushnell and Garmin territory without the brand safety net underneath you. At a discount you are buying two devices for about the price of one good one, which is a far easier sentence to say out loud on the first tee.

Who should buy it

The gadget golfer, unapologetically, and I mean that as a compliment. If you already carry a laser and a watch and have ever been mildly irritated that they lead separate lives, this is aimed squarely at you. It also suits anyone who plays a lot of unfamiliar courses, where hole maps genuinely earn their keep in a way they never quite do on the track you have played four hundred times.

Skip it if you want a company that will still be servicing this thing in eight years. Skip it if the app matters to you. And skip it if you already own a laser you like and a watch you like, because the itch this scratches is one you do not have. The rest of the field is in our best rangefinders guide.