Expert Review Space saver with cool features - Covert Optics by Armasight ThermX TRF Thermal Rangefinder

I like combining 2 products into one when possible, as it saves on space/weight as well as being less things to remember to bring with me.

So I was intrigued by this Thermal laser rangefinder. I use thermal to scan for or track game and use a laser rangefinder to get the data i need to make a shot. Combining those products makes a lot of sense to me. But this product failed to deliver on that concept for me.

The laser rangefinder is solid. Good real world performance and easy to use. It is a bit strange holding it away from your eye to look at the screen compared to normal LRFs that you hold directly in front of your eye, but you quickly adjust to that. It did make me appreciate the 4x or 5x magnification that most traditional laser rangefinders offer.

The thermal aspect was not up to par for the price or my needs. It was better than the LCO I previously used and part of me knew what to expect given the sensor size, but having a higher quality image and a faster refresh rate is still important to me. While this unit delivers on the detection, it is lacking on the recognition and identification aspects.

Since it is meant primarily for bow hunting, I let a friend borrow it for the bow season and in that application it performed better. He tried mounting it to the bow and practicing shooting with it as an optic. While that feature was interesting to him, he wanted more time using it before taking it hunting so he didn't use it on live targets.

Overall I like the concept and some of the features but for my uses, the performance wasn't what i wanted.