Jauvane Oliveira from Brazil, RJ Public Profile

I acquired this device due to its portability. It gets much easier to keep with me for eventual use. The device works nicely and has a very good screen. Its angle of view is narrow (19 degrees) but you may always move left/right to cover a larger area. I also have a 6x zoomed device that also records pictures or videos, but I was looking for one with a maximum 2x zoom for a wider area coverage. This unit is a 1x unit. It does not have digital zoom or video/picture recording capability. It turns on immediately (as soon as you turn it on, the unit is ready to use. There is no boot time) and has three levels of power for a IR torch (4 if you count the off setting). I did notice that some glare gets back to the unit when the IR torch is lit. Seems like the glass that covers the lens and torch transports some of the light back to the lens (that is why I cut off a star in this review). Although a bit disturbing, that doesn't prevent one from using the unit. This will work very well with an external IR torch if you wish to inspect around your camp ground. The device runs on 3 AAA batteries, which are easy to find anywhere. It is tough to install the lanyard, but using a thin rope to push the lanyard in place helps quite a bit.

After reading a lot about night vision and evaluating quite a few models of 1st/2nd GEN devices I decided to get the Bushnell 6x50 Equinox Z model due to its attractive price point, good zoom level, easy battery solution (it uses 4 standard AA batteries) and robustness. The Equinox Z 6x zoom can save pictures or videos. It has 4 IR light power settings (IR3, IR2, IR1, IR0) in addition to the standard non-IR setting. It has a fixed lens (there are also models with 3x, 4.5x fixed lens) but you may use digital image stretching to increase the zoom level (albeit resulting in some noise being added). The 6x zoom unit is adequate for someone who expects to seek distant objects. If you with to use the device to walk around camp the 3x (or other models with even lower zoom level) would be a better choice. For my main application the 6x unit cuts it. The focus is manual, but that works towards its robustness. I am considering to get a 2x model for walking around in darkness, perhaps the Bushnell 3x30 Equinox Z (or some with even lower zoom).

In the box you will find a USB cable to transfer files to your computer without removing the microSD card from the device (I prefer to remove the card, but that's just me), a composite video cable which allows you to see live image in a bigger screen (the device does not playback the recorded content, that is only for live view), as well as a good quality carrying case. The box does not include a microSD card, which you need if you expect to reco