Since it was brought up on the other thread, here's my X Sight review:
In the night vision world, I have never been a huge fan of ATN overall. Their analog night vision tends to lag a bit behind a lot of the other companies out there. However, they do have a pretty good handle on digital product, so when their new X Sight was announced, I immediately put in a couple orders for their 3-12x sight and their 5-18x. The 3-12x had a recall so it hasn't hit the streets yet, but the 5-18x recently hit and I had the ability to do a test drive on it before sending it to the poster who bought it.
In talking about the X Sight, I'm going to give comparisons to traditional night vision, digital night vision, and regular rifle optics. The X Sight was developed to be a "do all" type of scope. As such, I feel compelled to measure it against all three types.
When the unit arrived at the house, the first thing I noticed was that it actually was packaged nicely. As much as I love Night Optics, they have no packaging. The hunter/shooter in me could not care less, but the retailer in me always scratches his head about that so I did appreciate a packaging that had some appeal. Opening the box, the unit comes in a canvas bag/case. Again, a nice surprise as I did not realize it would be coming like that. It was wrapped up with the IR illuminator and instructions.
The build of the scope impressed me immediately. It's definitely well built and has definite weight to it. It's not as heavy as my Gen3+ scope, but it is much more so than a traditional scope. It weighs in at 2.7 lbs compared to 9lbs of the traditional NV scope and about 1lb compared to my Leupold VX3. How this will affect it's use is curious. With a NV scope, it's generally assumed you'll be holed up and waiting, not running around too much with it so the weight isn't a huge deal. With the X Sight, since it is meant to be an all purpose weapon system, it may prove to be a little much since it's nearly three times the weight of a regular scope.
Turning the unit on and using it during the day is a mixed bag. A few pluses are that the unit has a 1080p display AND sensor. Having both be 1080p is key as it means the native resolution of the image and the display are the same. The computer does not have to force the image to display correctly. The Pulsar N750 has a 500x582 pixel sensor followed by a 640x480 display. Long story short, the image on the X Sight is much less pixelated and much clearer. Genuinely a jump from standard definition to high definition here. That's the good. The downside is that during high movement, the image can be a bit choppy, which is horrible for tracking a fast moving target. There is flat out no comparison between the image here and with a regular scope. My VX-3 and my Viper HD just blow this thing out of the water in regards to clarity. Anyone using this as a primary scope will definitely need good binocs while out in the field.
For NV use, this is a digital NV device so it's got a few things going for it and a few things that suck. For the magnification, the weight is wonderful. It's of the weight of my big NV scope and it's also much more compact, only being a little larger than regular optical scope. Because it's digital, an IR illuminator is pretty much essential. One thing I liked about the Pulsar unit is that it has the illuminator built into it, but it was only a medium quality illuminator. The X Sight comes with an adjustable illuminator with an aspheric lens. This is cool because you can literally turn the light into a single spot for distance or open it up to give a wider view. However, the X Sight's illuminator has to be added on as an attachment, adding a little more weight and necessitating a rail system. Other great things are the sight isn't prone to damage from heavy recoil (traditional pinnacle system NV tubes can't be used on anything larger than an AR15 type caliber and the L3 tubes can be used on calibers up to 308) and can technically be used on any rifle. Also, there is never any danger of burning the tube out by turning it on during the day.
Actually looking at the image, I would put it under a Gen 2 in brightness/what you can see. Unfortunately, it just still doesn't come up to Gen 2 in quality, much less the Gen 3+ that is much more prevalent now. Price wise, I have Gen 2 setups starting at around $1300 bucks. So while there is an increase in price, there is also a genuine increase in image quality. One other benefit to regular night vision is that it can be much more adaptable. With a dedicated scope, you are locked into looking at only what your rifle is pointed at. My usual setup for myself is a PVS 14 with a QD behind either an NV compatible EOTech or a Vortex Strikefire.
Unique features on the scope are the ability to take pictures/video, a clock, wi fi and a gps. The video/picture feature is nice and the main reason why I will probably be keeping one of the next two that I have coming in next week. Just a really cool feature and would love to be able to have video of kill shots and also be able to see just what the heck happened when I missed something. Wifi is cool because it allows the shooter to upload pics/video directly to their internet. I think blue tooth would have been a better choice here, but that's definitely a nit pick. The clock is meh and I'm still trying to wrap my head around why they put the GPS in. Sure, you can put the exact lattitude/longitude of whatever your shots were but why? I can see a few advantages but just doubt that the overwhelming majority of end users will ever care. Seems like an added expense for a little used feature.
Overall, this is a good step forward for overall digital sights and finally one that I will probably end up with myself. I love tech so the drawbacks to it really won't be a big deal for me. I personally have much better NV that I'll still continue to use but I can see this as being a decent extra unit to use to take a friend out into the field or as a cheap introduction to NV for a new user. I personally think that digital will eventually take over the market but we are still a good ways off on that.
In the night vision world, I have never been a huge fan of ATN overall. Their analog night vision tends to lag a bit behind a lot of the other companies out there. However, they do have a pretty good handle on digital product, so when their new X Sight was announced, I immediately put in a couple orders for their 3-12x sight and their 5-18x. The 3-12x had a recall so it hasn't hit the streets yet, but the 5-18x recently hit and I had the ability to do a test drive on it before sending it to the poster who bought it.
In talking about the X Sight, I'm going to give comparisons to traditional night vision, digital night vision, and regular rifle optics. The X Sight was developed to be a "do all" type of scope. As such, I feel compelled to measure it against all three types.
When the unit arrived at the house, the first thing I noticed was that it actually was packaged nicely. As much as I love Night Optics, they have no packaging. The hunter/shooter in me could not care less, but the retailer in me always scratches his head about that so I did appreciate a packaging that had some appeal. Opening the box, the unit comes in a canvas bag/case. Again, a nice surprise as I did not realize it would be coming like that. It was wrapped up with the IR illuminator and instructions.
The build of the scope impressed me immediately. It's definitely well built and has definite weight to it. It's not as heavy as my Gen3+ scope, but it is much more so than a traditional scope. It weighs in at 2.7 lbs compared to 9lbs of the traditional NV scope and about 1lb compared to my Leupold VX3. How this will affect it's use is curious. With a NV scope, it's generally assumed you'll be holed up and waiting, not running around too much with it so the weight isn't a huge deal. With the X Sight, since it is meant to be an all purpose weapon system, it may prove to be a little much since it's nearly three times the weight of a regular scope.
Turning the unit on and using it during the day is a mixed bag. A few pluses are that the unit has a 1080p display AND sensor. Having both be 1080p is key as it means the native resolution of the image and the display are the same. The computer does not have to force the image to display correctly. The Pulsar N750 has a 500x582 pixel sensor followed by a 640x480 display. Long story short, the image on the X Sight is much less pixelated and much clearer. Genuinely a jump from standard definition to high definition here. That's the good. The downside is that during high movement, the image can be a bit choppy, which is horrible for tracking a fast moving target. There is flat out no comparison between the image here and with a regular scope. My VX-3 and my Viper HD just blow this thing out of the water in regards to clarity. Anyone using this as a primary scope will definitely need good binocs while out in the field.
For NV use, this is a digital NV device so it's got a few things going for it and a few things that suck. For the magnification, the weight is wonderful. It's of the weight of my big NV scope and it's also much more compact, only being a little larger than regular optical scope. Because it's digital, an IR illuminator is pretty much essential. One thing I liked about the Pulsar unit is that it has the illuminator built into it, but it was only a medium quality illuminator. The X Sight comes with an adjustable illuminator with an aspheric lens. This is cool because you can literally turn the light into a single spot for distance or open it up to give a wider view. However, the X Sight's illuminator has to be added on as an attachment, adding a little more weight and necessitating a rail system. Other great things are the sight isn't prone to damage from heavy recoil (traditional pinnacle system NV tubes can't be used on anything larger than an AR15 type caliber and the L3 tubes can be used on calibers up to 308) and can technically be used on any rifle. Also, there is never any danger of burning the tube out by turning it on during the day.
Actually looking at the image, I would put it under a Gen 2 in brightness/what you can see. Unfortunately, it just still doesn't come up to Gen 2 in quality, much less the Gen 3+ that is much more prevalent now. Price wise, I have Gen 2 setups starting at around $1300 bucks. So while there is an increase in price, there is also a genuine increase in image quality. One other benefit to regular night vision is that it can be much more adaptable. With a dedicated scope, you are locked into looking at only what your rifle is pointed at. My usual setup for myself is a PVS 14 with a QD behind either an NV compatible EOTech or a Vortex Strikefire.
Unique features on the scope are the ability to take pictures/video, a clock, wi fi and a gps. The video/picture feature is nice and the main reason why I will probably be keeping one of the next two that I have coming in next week. Just a really cool feature and would love to be able to have video of kill shots and also be able to see just what the heck happened when I missed something. Wifi is cool because it allows the shooter to upload pics/video directly to their internet. I think blue tooth would have been a better choice here, but that's definitely a nit pick. The clock is meh and I'm still trying to wrap my head around why they put the GPS in. Sure, you can put the exact lattitude/longitude of whatever your shots were but why? I can see a few advantages but just doubt that the overwhelming majority of end users will ever care. Seems like an added expense for a little used feature.
Overall, this is a good step forward for overall digital sights and finally one that I will probably end up with myself. I love tech so the drawbacks to it really won't be a big deal for me. I personally have much better NV that I'll still continue to use but I can see this as being a decent extra unit to use to take a friend out into the field or as a cheap introduction to NV for a new user. I personally think that digital will eventually take over the market but we are still a good ways off on that.