ok keep in mind this wasn't a field test. just my thoughts about looking at some and comparing them to what I normally run leica geovid HD's. I spent probably about 30 mins drooling over the swaros.
leica has its work cut out for them. they are more comfortable in the hand. the bumps on the bottom of the barrel I found in no way got in the way of my hands, in fact they may be more comfortable that way because my hands rest right comfortably against them. I also preferred the rubber on the outside of the swaros its a tad softer more texture and as a result you get a better grip on the units.
I like that the diopter adjustments lock into place on the swaro unit. these can get moved on the leicas, especially because there is 2 of them and focusing these RF binoculars is somewhat complicated. I also think the range on release of the bottom is going to make ranging small distant targets easier, because it will make it easier to hold on the target right when you get the range.
the swaros have the inclination feature which will be very very nice using as a bow hunting ranging unit in the moutains I hunt. in fact the best buck I have ever shot at might be on my wall if I had angle compensation on my leicas, I was taking a longer shot and the angle was pretty extreme. I had no idea how much off the adjusted range should have been and thus the arrow sailed right over the bucks back.
the only thing that concerned me was the hinge was a tad looser than I would have liked. not a big deal and very well could be the particular unit I looked at. as to the glass, WOW its very easy to see these are a lot better than leica's HD units. I would have loved to have done a low light test, but I can say that in the store they were noticeably clearer and brighter.
bottom line is I want some. I am very interested to see how actual field use of the rangefinder compares to leica and zeiss. a guy like john burns needs to give us a full report.
