Stewart Q Follow vs PowaKaddy RX1 GPS: follow-me or remote-control?

Buy the Stewart Golf Q Follow if the whole point is walking a golf course with nothing in your hands — it is about as good as a follow trolley gets right now, and it feels like it. Buy the PowaKaddy RX1 GPS if you want remote control plus a proper built-in GPS for less money — the value-per-feature play in a category not famous for value. That is the verdict; here is the interesting part. The robot caddie golf has been promising for a decade has finally, quietly arrived, and it has split into two competing philosophies. One machine follows you. The other obeys you. Which one suits you says a lot about why you wanted a robot in the first place.

Two robots, two philosophies

The Q Follow's party trick is in the name. Drop the handset in your pocket and the trolley tracks you down the fairway on its own, adjusting speed and direction so you can simply walk — Stewart calls it the eighth generation of its Follow mode, and it sits alongside a full remote (forward, reverse, left, right) with a 75-metre Bluetooth range and battery monitoring through the Stewart Golf app. The RX1 takes the opposite route: you drive it. A slimline handset with a genuine 50-metre range sends the trolley ahead of you, around the bunker, over to the next tee — wherever you point it. Neither approach is wrong, but they feel completely different on grass. The Stewart is a companion; the PowaKaddy is a machine you operate. Some golfers find hands-free walking borderline spiritual. Others find piloting the robot is the fun part.

The case for the Stewart

The Q Follow is designed, engineered and hand-built in Britain on a microcellular composite chassis, and the build is the first thing anyone notices — this is a trolley with genuine prestige-object energy, superbly stable and a joy on open courses. You choose a base 230Wh battery or the bigger 307Wh Max, good for roughly 18 to 36 holes, and it folds in under 30 seconds. The caveats deserve equal billing. At about 14.1kg before the battery goes in, it is a lump to lift into a car boot every Saturday. Follow mode is a clever assistant rather than a full caddie replacement — around greens, tees and tight pinches you will still pull the handset out and drive. And at $2,050 it costs more than many golfers' iron sets. You are not buying transport; you are buying the experience of walking empty-handed, hand-built by people who clearly obsess over it.

The case for the PowaKaddy

The RX1 GPS is the top of PowaKaddy's remote range and was billed as the first touchscreen remote GPS trolley — and that GPS is the whole argument. The 3.5-inch colour touchscreen on the handle carries over 40,000 preloaded courses with front, middle and back yardages, hazard distances, a scorecard and drop-pin measuring, with no subscription fees ever. Underneath sit twin near-silent motors with Slope Traverse Assist to hold a straight line across cambers, a swivel front wheel, an anti-tip rear wheel, a USB port for your phone, and PowaKaddy's XL-Plus lithium battery — the lightest in the class. You get a two-year trolley warranty and five years on the battery. At $1,800 it undercuts the Stewart while bundling in a GPS unit you would otherwise buy separately, which is why it wins the pounds-per-feature contest without breaking sweat.

What the spec sheets won't tell you

In practice the two modes trade places over 18 holes. Follow mode is magic on wide, open fairways — you genuinely forget the trolley exists — but it needs managing in traffic, so the Stewart becomes a remote trolley around greens anyway. The RX1 asks you to half-pilot it all round, but that has its own payoff: you can send it toward the next tee while you finish putting, a small daily flourish that never gets old. The RX1's screen also consolidates devices — if it replaces a GPS watch or handheld, that is one less thing to charge and one cleaner argument to make to whoever audits your golf spending. The Stewart counters with app-based battery monitoring and the simple fact that nothing else on the market walks beside you quite like it.

The honest alternative

Now the part the brochures skip: a conventional electric trolley does about 90 per cent of this job for a fraction of the money. It still carries your bag up the same hills, still saves your back and your energy for the shots, still folds into the boot. What you are paying for here is the last 10 per cent — the hands-free glide or the remote-park flourish — and it is a luxury, not a necessity. Nobody needs a robot caddie; plenty of people very much want one, and that is a fine reason to buy things. But if the maths makes you wince, the sensible money lives in our best electric trolleys guide, and your golf will not suffer one bit.

Which robot should you buy

The gadget-lover and the prestige buyer should take the Stewart Q Follow: it is the better-built object, the follow act is the category's headline trick, and it is the one that draws a crowd on the first tee. The value-conscious feature buyer should take the PowaKaddy RX1 GPS: more capability per pound, fee-free GPS built in, and a long battery warranty behind it. Skip both if you ride a cart, only walk occasionally, or resent lifting anything heavy out of a boot — a robot you leave in the garage is the most expensive kind. The full field, including the cheaper compromises, lives in our remote and follow trolleys guide and across our trolleys coverage.