I looked at the following LRF/Binos and I had some initial thoughts that are limited to the poor lightening conditions at the show and the inability to compare side-by-side:
- Athlon Cronus: Made in China. Nice glass, looks like the same body as the Leupold. Most limited ranging capabilities of the newest offerings and no connectivity with Kestrel and AB. Athlon guy at the booth claimed that come with a life time warranty. Looks pricing will be similar to Vortex and Sig at around $1200, so I don't see these as a legitimate competitor at that price point. However, if they dropped the street price down to $750-$800, then they would sell a bunch of these to the hunting crowd.
- Leupold RBX-3000: Glass seemed nice, comparable to the Cornus and Vortex. However, not as good as the Leica Geovid HD-B 3000. Because it lacks connectivity with Kestrel/AB and doesn't have true tier 1 glass, they are asking way too much for these. Assuming these will be $2000+ street price, I'd pony up a few $$$ more for the Leicas for the better glass and proven LRF tech.
- Vortex Fury HD 5000: Nice glass, Vortex claims same level as their Viper HDs and it I don't recall noticing a bluish tint that people reported the gen 1 having but the lighting was bad. I suspect that is how they kept the price down closer to $1k versus $2k if they had gone with Razor HD level. They seemed better than the Athlon and hard to say if better/worse than the Leupold. Price is competitive, but they really needed to include connectivity with Kestrel/AB. Covered by Vortex's lifetime warranty, so that's a plus.
- Sig 3000BDX: Nice form factor, I can't fairly comment on the glass because they had the display units under the worst post-apocalyptic lighting conditions (spot lights from above angled into your face). Confirmed with a Sig rep that only offering a 5 year warranty. I'm anxiously awaiting some field reports as these are the only ones in the group that have connectivity with Kestrel/AB.
- Leica Geovid HD-B 3000 - Not really new, but I think these are the gold standard for the price/features/glass. Leica introduced their Rangemaster CRF 2800.com with Bluetooth at the show and an app so I assume that will migrate into the Geovids by next year.
- Bushnell ???? As I mentioned in another thread, they "might" be working on a new LRF/Bino with connectivity and ED Prime glass (think Forge Binos) at the same price point as the Sig. If this pans out, then I'd lean towards them over the Sigs only because of Sig's 5 year warranty and their history of having inconsistencies and spotty Q/C on their LRFs.
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