I was a little skeptical of this product when I ordered it.

Thankfully, any fears I had were cast aside on my first outing with the optic.

The body, while mostly plastic, feels solid and well made. Overall, the optic has a nice heft too it. The focus ring is metal, and nicely knurled. The eye cup is hard plastic, but is very functional and comfortable. The objective is nicely overcoated, as is the eye lenses. They eye lens diameter is, perhaps, a little small, but the field of view still 'feels' good, and the field stop is razor sharp and jet black- good signs for it's design and coatings.

The image is bright for the aperture. It's brighter than my Nikon Trailbalzer 8x25 (comparing using only one eye), which speaks well of the glass and anti-reflection coatings in the Jizmo, as well as for the reflective coating on the roof prism.

Focus is razor sharp at all distances, and is sharp almost completely across the field of view. I observed no field distortion, and could not detect chromatic aberration, which is impressive for an inexpensive optic at 8x.

The 'gearing' of the focus ring is very comfortable- it's fairly quick to move from infinity focus to closes focus, with two hands, yet allows for very precise final focus- I don't have the feeling of constantly passing through best focus. Once general focus is achieved, I find I can easily use the optic one handed, with the outer finger contacting and twisting the ring as necessary to achieve focus.

Stars focus to pinpoints, and the near full moon focuses razor sharp with minimal veiling glare- the field pleasantly dark, clearly exposing field stars. This is a very harsh test for an optic, so I was very surprised and pleased with the Jizmo for this test.

It's nicely sized- it's 'squatty' profile makes it sit quite comfortably in a shirt pocket, and it fits comfortably in the hand.

The close focus is impressive, and a lot of fun. Depth of focus might be a little tight at closest focus, but I'm not sure this could be improved while maintaining the optics overall performance at distance, or while maintaining the comfortable eye relief, not to mention price.

The biggest complaint I have is that the optic is a little sensitive to veiling glare when observing targets adjacent to bright surfaces. This is a common 'flaw' of most low and lower end optics, so it's forgivable at this price point. Indeed, many high end optics also display this.

A very minor complaint is that the exit pupil isn't round all the way around. One side is cut off a teeny bit, showing that an interior surface is cutting into the light path. This has nearly no impact on the image, though, so it can be safely ignored. I was pleasantly surprised that the intrusion produced minimal diffraction effects on the Moon, meaning it's very inconsequential to the overall performance of the optic.

Two things I wish: 1) It had come with lens caps that'd offer dust protection when the optic is carried in a shirt pocket, given how convenient it is to carry it that way, and, 2) that it was waterproof; it's lack of weatherproofing is probably it's weakest link when compared to the only other similar optic I'm aware of, the Pentax VM 6x21, but considering the very significant price difference, this is a forgivable shortcoming.

Overall, a very impressive optic, and a lot of fun to use. I'm very pleasantly surprised and impressed. Without hesitation, I'd recommend this over any other 25mm optic anywhere near it's price range.

Great little scope! First, let me tell you where I'm coming from with this review. I'm not new to optics, and have many high end devices such as Canon 10x30 IS image stabilized binoculars and others. I'm also into photography and have a Canon DSLR and L series lenses. I'm not as "wowed" by an optical device as someone new to buying optics might be.

That said, I REALLY like this little scope. It's the perfect size to pack in a jacket pocket. The image is bright and clear, and from edge to edge. If there is any chromatic aberration, (Rainbow fringes around hard edged objects) I'm not noticing it. A lot of cheaper binoculars and monoculars seem to suffer from center sharpness and around the edges blurriness, but this scope is NOT one of them. It's also very lightweight, so I can use it for a long time without any muscle fatigue.

The focus ring is at the front, so it's a two-handed device. There is a slight touch of slop, you have to go back a little (1/16 turn or so) to take up the slack and turn the other way to get perfect focus. Most scopes other than maybe a $1,500 Zeiss will have this, so it's not a problem. The focus ring is firm but easy to twist. The ring is also metal with a nice knurling and is easy to grip with fingertips. Once you're focused for more than a few hundreds yards out, there's no need to reset it. An unusual thing for this scope is the close focus; down to barely more than a foot away. I would think observing spiders and insects with great detail would be a fun summer thing to do.

The eyepiece guard unscrews to extend out for your eye, or in to use with glasses. With it all the way out, I'd say you get about 97% of the view. The eye relief of 16mm is generous; short eye relief causes "tunnel vision" or a too-narrow field of vision. Finding what you're looking for is fast and easy, no "blacking out" as your eye stays in alignment. And that's not insignificant, a short eye relief can ruin an otherwise good scope.

This is a very good scope for daytime use, but is bright enough to be fairly okay in the dark. The laws of physics apply here, 8x25 will never be a good night use scope because the objective lens isn't large enough. If you need low light, go for a 8x42 or 8x50. Of course, that will make for a much larger monocular. 25mm is about an inch, 32mm is 1.25 inch, 42 is about 1.5 inch, and a 50mm is almost 2 inches.

8x is perfect for a handheld scope as any higher magnification just gets impossible to hold still enough to see any details. There's a reason marine binoculars are generally 7x50, the U.S. military decided decades ago that 7x is the maximum magnification practical for handheld optics without image stabilization. (Recent technology) If you're shopping for a monocular, beware of 10x or higher, especially zoom scopes (such as 10x - 30x) because they're just useless without a tripod. The only way to see details is to have image stabilization such as Canon, Fujifilm, and others (binoculars) that cost hundreds of dollars. When jiggle is bad enough, you cannot read a sign or license plate, or even positively ID a bird variety.

The form factor for this scope helps a lot with the jiggle factor because it's short. The longer a scope, such as tube type designs, even the slightest lateral movement causes bad jiggle and makes details too hard to see. I can wrap my whole hand around this scope, and brace the eyepiece against my nose, and it makes for a very steady view. And, as a bonus, there is a standard tripod threaded hole in the bottom. That means a tripod if you're watching birds and are seated at an observation station. Or a glass-edge camera mount in a vehicle, or even a monopod while hiking. This scope is more for hiking for me, as I'll be using image stabilized Canon binoculars when driving the Jeep or watching wildlife while not moving around. (i.e. camp chair in a blind) A monocular is easier to use from a vehicle window than binoculars to scout wildlife.

The scope comes with a cloth draw bag, a hand lanyard, and a cleaning cloth. My scope came with a somewhat damaged escutcheon, (Legend-surround on the objective lens) but isn't worth removing a rating star. I did not attempt taking photos through the scope as they would not do justice to the image you actually see.

I really like the monocular, am a big bird watcher. Told my friends, haven't had a chance to show them yet.

I was surprised by two aspects. One is that it is very powerful: It brings the image close; very much so.

The image is crisp, clear, sharp.

The other aspect is how useful it is as a microcope when I flip it around. I have done this with all my monoculars, but this one in particular is very useful... maybe it's the wide lens that makes it comfortable. The eye ring, the viewer, helps a lot when you stick that ring out. The focus is appropiately firm. A good mono

Do you like looking at birds and bugs and everything in between? Get this Minox Macroscope for nearly an order of magnitude cheaper〜