L.A. Biker from United States, CA Public Profile

As far as I can determine, the *only* difference between regular vs. the OPMOD variant is that the standard ["Carson NV200 MiniAura"] comes with a velveteen soft-pouch [depicted in the product description] whereas the OPMOD has a nylon holster-type belt pouch w/ velcro closure [so you can be certain to scare off any wildlife who hears you whipping out your digital night vision gadget! X-D] That, and this OPMOD version is in a nice, dark anthracite grey color, to make it harder to find if you should set it down in the dark for some obscure reason [like you need your hands free?]

Pros: this is the smallest, lightest, least expensive NVD out there. It comes with an attached IR illuminator [this is important, because other Gen1 analog devices in this $-range do not, and none of them work w/o an external illumination source!] And being digital, this thing should NOT chew up batteries & spit them out the way the analog Gen1 NVD units do [altho' I haven't had mine long enough to test this theory, but I feel confident the efficiency is MUCH higher than analog units...] NB: it IS going to use batteries quickly, simply because you MUST use the IR to get anything useful out of it, so that burns up more juice vs. mere passive detection...

Cons: The built-in IR light gives off a bright red [bullseye shaped, funnily enough! It's almost like they're acknowledging that using this makes you a target for anyone who's also using a NVD...] glow visible to any creature that can see that color.