Bought these in 2012 and in 2015 they started to develop double vision. Never tried to return them because I assumed they were not covered under warrantee. I understand that the prism can be off a bit, which can create this. It's a shame because the repair will probably cost more than the original cost, so I am now forced to buy a new pair.

Having the Bushnell 8x42 legacy model to compare it to, I wanted a little more zoom and light gathering ability for astronomy. I can tell you that the legacy has better optics and imagery. These tend to have flares at dawn and dusk from internal reflections; in full sunlight and astronomy conditions you don't notice it. I'd probably have gotten the 10x50 legacy model instead, but these work well and were cheap. The focusing system is fast and accurate, and does focus better than the legacy models I have.

very nice binoculars. Good all round use. Easy to focus.

My initial impression of these was pretty high. I was able to get both eyes in sharp focus on a bright star, collimation seemed also very good and chromatic aberration seemed acceptable. (Note, this was just by bracing myself against a sturdy object; a tripod might have made any subtle flaws more noticeable). The next day I tried to view nearer things in daylight. Again, at first I was pretty impressed. Then as I focused the binoculars in and out, I heard a kind of crackly noise, and eventually noticed an intermittent clinking sound (like metal on glass) as I moved the binoculars around. I traced the sound to the right barrel, and shined a flashlight through the objective. While I couldn't see a loose element, I could see a bunch of clear flakes sitting on the objective and scattered in the right barrel. I don't know if it was lens glue or actual glass, but this is not good. I can't speak to what happened during shipping, but in my possession, it was never roughly handled or dropped. The only "shock" it could have received was thermal shock from going outside in 20F weather to look at stars, which hopefully shouldn't cause an optical train to fall apart!

Not bad. Not bad at all. For the price, I think these are very good binoculars. Highly recommend buying.