Many of you may have already seen this but for those who haven't the video is below.
This is the first time I've been able to actually use these and thought I'd share my impressions.
The first thing to get out of the way is - "Are these worth it?" My answer to that (and I'd say the exact same thing even if I didn't work for TNVC) is YES if you can afford them. They are awesome and that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Yes, I realize these are expensive, however, "expensive" is a relative term. To some, a single PVS-14 is too much money to spend, not to mention binos, adding thermals, COTI/ECOTI, etc. etc. There are plenty of guys who can afford these and if I was one of them I'd be ordering one ASAP because they are selling and I'd want to get them sooner rather than later.
Moving on....
One of the more interesting things about them is how much brighter everything appears because of the 4 tubes. That's with a good Moon and without. I had the chance to use them under both. It's hard to describe. The additional FOV took some getting used to at first. For example when I turned on the X300V on my helmet, when the outer tube on that side lit up, it took me by surprise, lol. Same thing with meteors and such that you don't normally notice outside the traditional 40 degree FOV. In very low light conditions the extra FOV calms your senses down because you don't have to scan as much as you do with the traditional 40 degree FOV. Driving blacked out with them is absolutely phenomenal as would be expected.
I wondered if the fixed diopters might yield a less than ideal image but that wasn't the case at all. It was actually nice to not worry about the diopters only having the objectives to deal with which are easy to focus. The optics perform exceptionally well. The on/off button works great and is easy to find. Using a battery pack as the only power source is a huge plus not only for the run time but it's reassuring to simply unplug the cable from the side of the goggle with zero worry of accidentally turning them on.
The weight isn't an issue with proper counterbalancing. They feel similar to dual PVS-14s although the distribution is obviously different. Binos such as the L3Harris BNVD (aka PVS-31A), 1531s, and DTNVS are lighter weight with the ability to articulate a monocular out of your way, etc. but one thing is for sure, if all of them are laying on the table for you to pick from, odds are 99.9% you'll grab the GPNVGs
This is the first time I've been able to actually use these and thought I'd share my impressions.
The first thing to get out of the way is - "Are these worth it?" My answer to that (and I'd say the exact same thing even if I didn't work for TNVC) is YES if you can afford them. They are awesome and that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Yes, I realize these are expensive, however, "expensive" is a relative term. To some, a single PVS-14 is too much money to spend, not to mention binos, adding thermals, COTI/ECOTI, etc. etc. There are plenty of guys who can afford these and if I was one of them I'd be ordering one ASAP because they are selling and I'd want to get them sooner rather than later.
Moving on....
One of the more interesting things about them is how much brighter everything appears because of the 4 tubes. That's with a good Moon and without. I had the chance to use them under both. It's hard to describe. The additional FOV took some getting used to at first. For example when I turned on the X300V on my helmet, when the outer tube on that side lit up, it took me by surprise, lol. Same thing with meteors and such that you don't normally notice outside the traditional 40 degree FOV. In very low light conditions the extra FOV calms your senses down because you don't have to scan as much as you do with the traditional 40 degree FOV. Driving blacked out with them is absolutely phenomenal as would be expected.
I wondered if the fixed diopters might yield a less than ideal image but that wasn't the case at all. It was actually nice to not worry about the diopters only having the objectives to deal with which are easy to focus. The optics perform exceptionally well. The on/off button works great and is easy to find. Using a battery pack as the only power source is a huge plus not only for the run time but it's reassuring to simply unplug the cable from the side of the goggle with zero worry of accidentally turning them on.
The weight isn't an issue with proper counterbalancing. They feel similar to dual PVS-14s although the distribution is obviously different. Binos such as the L3Harris BNVD (aka PVS-31A), 1531s, and DTNVS are lighter weight with the ability to articulate a monocular out of your way, etc. but one thing is for sure, if all of them are laying on the table for you to pick from, odds are 99.9% you'll grab the GPNVGs
