TASCO Essentials Binocular

It's not bad for 12 dollars. That's my summary for these binos. Details, details...These Tascos are the type of optics you'd buy at Wal-Mart. They feature fold-down eyecups for eyeglasses use, black rubber armoring, and are good for a "normal" person's use.Field-of-view is 383 feet at 1000 yards; 128 meters at 1000 meters. Exit pupil is 2.6mm and the binos weigh 6.6 ounces. The lenses are fully coated, and this is a roof prism set. Focus is adjusted via the dial in the center, and fine-tuning is via diopter ring on the right side. What does all this mean?In layman's terms, the zoom (8) is good for untrained optic users. The number 8 means that you'll see things 8 times closer than you would over your unaided eye. I've found that this is ideal for people with no experience with optics; any less and it won't be powerful enough, and any more powerful and the user's natural movements will cause image shake. Exit is 21mm; this lets in a fair amount of light. Clarity is okay, as I've found that the focus dial in the center only gets you so far. Even by playing with the diopter adjusted as best I can get it, I'd say these binoculars are good for reading the license plate number across a long parking lot. Think 90 yards or so. As long as you're not watching objects for a long time, I think you'll be fine. Any longer than a few minutes and your eyes start to hurt. Typical of inexpensive optics.The rubber armoring does its job; nothing special. The fold-down eyecups are for use without removing your eyeglasses, and they work as advertised. The binoculars have a neck strap attached; it's not removable and is rounded (not flat). It's long enough for any neck, and is sturdy enough to keep the binos around your neck while running. The included lens cleaning cloth is okay, but it's better than nothing. The carrying case is black nylon, and the fabric feels like a cheap eyeglass case. It closes with a Velcro strip, which hasn't started to fray or rip yet. The belt loop is a length of black nylon webbing, and will fit a belt up to 2" wide. Mine has started to pull apart at the bottom stitch, but oh well. I don't expect top quality for twelve dollars.Give it a try if you're strapped for cash or are buying multiple units for family members.

I got these for my nephew as a gift since he's a boy scout and loves looking in the trees for birds when we go hiking and for the $11 price tag, I wasn't expecting the best quality, but I was so pleasantly surprised! These weren't made of cheap plastic like I was expecting but a much heavier and sturdier material and the coating on them is very soft and easy on the hands. The eyepieces are padded well and you can adjust the magnification by a great scale. The view through them is very clear and I love the compact size so we can fit it easily into our hiking backpack. Be aware these are not full sized binoculars. I liked that they came in a case as well to keep them protected. My nephew dropped them a few times and they didn't break or get damaged at all so they are very high quality for such a cheap price.The only criticism I have is that the neck strap on them is pretty flimsy. It feels like a shoelace and has about the same thickness as one. Overall, you can't beat the value and quality! Highly recommended!

Recently went to see Hal Holbrook perform his one man show as Mark Twain. We have a great performing arts center here and decided I had the choice of paying $100 plus for a seat in the orchestra section or get a ticket in the back of the balcony and pay a whole lot less. The seat in the "nose bleed" section would allow me to attend many more performances at the center or I could pay for the better seats and only be able to afford a couple of shows a year. These little binoculars were purchased to be used for just this purpose. They allow me to feel I have paid more for the seat I am in than I really did. They are fit in your pants pocket small, very light weight and the quality of the optics are fine for this use. They have a fairly narrow field of view, not a problem, we are talking about a stage not a football field. I would not consider these every day, outdoor use binoculars. I have my football binoculars which are large, heavy, zoom, and heavy duty build. These little binoculars are small and light enough that I just carry them in my computer shoulder bag and save the large binoculars for the more rough and tumble events. These little binoculars are perfect for what I purchased them for.

I have some pretty decent, expensive bins, but I wanted a cheap, cheerful and small pair to keep in my jacket pocket while walking the dog, etc.. I had real trouble identifying candidates from reviews because they inevitably say things like “good for the price” or list a load of build and optical imperfections compared to bins like Leica Trinovids. When trying examples out, “good for the price” often turned out to mean that virtual unuseability was arguably offset by a low price. Maybe it is just me, but I personally think that even a £5 pair of binoculars are extremely poor value if they cannot even focus both eyes evenly. I wanted a pair that were cheap, but useable and useful. I was not expecting Leica quality. So with those qualifications in mind, here are my offerings – someone who has regularly used bins for 40 years.I think that these bins are both useable and useful. I won’t list all of the optical shortcomings compared to Leicas or Opticron bins – they are of course there, but they don’t detract from the fact that in my opinion these offer a useably sharp and bright-enough image of birds in daylight or even dull days, and they are therefore in my personal opinion very much worth carrying in your pocket – a £12.65 Tasco compact in the hand is worth two Leica Trinovids in the drawer at home. The image is not only good enough to see and identify birds, but even to enjoy the view of them. These bins are very small – the smallest I could find with a useable, useful image in this low price bracket. They are pretty much perfect size-wise for keeping in a pocket “just in case” – closed, they fit nicely in a closed adult hand. The build quality is pretty good too – the rubber armour is well-fitted, nice to the touch and a reassurance against knocks – it extends over the ends of the barrels, so you can set them down on rough stone in pretty much any manner without any great concern. I have managed to chip a bit of black paint off of the central metal bridge, but this just makes them look like they are actually being used, and I can’t complain at this price. They are light enough to be unnoticeable in a jacket pocket, yet reassuringly weighty enough to feel like they have a bit of quality, if you know what I mean. I am no “label snob”, but to be honest I like the “Tasco” label on these – it is a well-known and largely respected brand in the optical goods world, rather than some weird, unheard of tag like “Abooka” (I made that up) or some other junky knock-off effort which you so often find at this price point. The thin string neck strap is fine given the light weight of these bins, albeit that it might be a little uncomfortable on bare skin when you aren’t wearing a collar – if indeed you would bother using a neck strap for bins of this size at all. By positioning the attachment of the neck strap to the upper side of the bins, they have far less tendency to flap and bang about on your chest, particularly if (perish the thought) you ever break into a trot while using them.The central focussing wheel is in my opinion very well positioned and is smooth and easy to turn, even with thin gloves on. Both eyes focus pretty much exactly the same and at the same rates – in my experience, cheap binoculars of this design type and price point very often don’t, which really does render them useless at any price. I had a cheap pair of Practica bins of this design type for nearly 25 years before they gave up the ghost (the two eyes went permanently out of alignment for some reason – probably a heavy knock of some sort). Over the years I found that all they needed were a bit of grease every now and then on the metal rods / guides that the assembly runs along when focussing to keep things smooth and even, and an occasional wipe over the rubber armour with a very light smear of silicon grease to keep the rubber nice, soft and grippy. This design can be a bit prone to gathering fluff and bits around the object lenses at the front where the inside of the barrels are greased, and I doubt that any are anything more than splash proof. Like most bins of this size and at this price point, they do not come with lens caps, and indeed it is difficult to see how any could be reliably fitted to this design. In my experience lens caps are a real faff in the field anyway. I usually keep mine in a small bag when it is stowed in my pocket (I found the cheap case it came with a bit fiddly) but obviously at these prices you don’t need to be too precious. The coatings on the lenses (that nice blue/green hue on the surface) aren’t up to Leica standards of course, but I guess they do something towards reducing glare and reflections and enhancing the light-gathering capability, so personally I only touch the lenses with soft lens cloths and try to blow away any sharp dirt first (as I do with my expensive bins) to avoid gradually rubbing these relatively soft coatings away.The eyecups are comfortable enough for non-glasses wearers, and fold back pretty easily for glasses wearers – I am both, and I found little problem using these with glasses. This again is a common failure point on may models I have looked at over the years – if you can’t get your eyes close enough to the lenses, you end up looking at a very small, wobbly circle of image amidst a big lump of black. One other maintenance point if you want these things to last – rub a bit of silicon grease into the eyecups every now and then, especially if you flip them back and forth regularly – in my experience they are the first thing on bins like these to stiffen, perish, crack up and fail. The two barrels swivel out more than wide enough for my eyes, so most folks from kids to wide-eyed adults should be able to set these to perfection. On some bins these hinges are not stiff enough to hold their position and can even flop about, which can get very annoying. I have found this fault to develop over time on my aforementioned Practicas – you will find slot head screws where the neck string is attached which can be tightened in order to rectify this problem. The dioptre adjustment – the turn-y thing on the right eyepiece which allows you to balance the focussing between one eye and the other – works smoothly too, yet is stiff enough to stay put once you have set it. There are clear increment markers that form part of the rubber armour moulding, so these cannot rub off over time - I personally find these useful for quick re-adjustments if another user has changed them.The small 21mm object lens allows the bins to be small, but as always it makes images duller and the field of view narrower, which makes locking on to birds you have seen first with the naked eye harder. No problem for a seasoned spotter like me, but personally I would go for bins with much larger object lenses for a child’s first pair, as in my direct experience they can otherwise struggle like crazy to lock on to anything. In a similar vein, x8 is plenty for most general or casual birdwatching needs. At x10, image shake becomes a problem, and if you stay with the same small object lens size of 21mm, the image gets even darker. If most of your watching is fairly close, I would even go down to x7 or even x6 to get the brighter image, especially at this low price point. In the megabucks territory – Leica, Swarovski, etc. – then they can perform miracles with wondrously crafted optics and lens coatings, etc. so you can have your cake and eat it – albeit at eye watering prices.I conclusion, I think personally buying a pair of these for just £12.65 to keep in your pocket is a real no-brainer – they are very useable and I couldn’t find anything of a similar size as good for the price.

I bought this for my eight year old daughter due to the price being £15. The reasoning behind that is that so many of the bins labeled "for kids" seem to be very iffy on the optical quality and alignment. Tasco being a proper manufacturer of optics and binoculars, I thought that even if they were not that great, they shouldn't mess her eyes up.It turned out to be a great choice. Not only are they small and light enough for her to use, but the view she can get with these are great. I've used cheap 8X21 roof prism bins before and these are by far the best. Sure I can see the difference in brightness and clarity between the Zeiss 8x30 porro prism bins I use, but I would expect that.My little one now knows how to use bins correctly and can go off and use them herself without me worrying to much about her damaging them. They are fairly well made.I would also say these made a great pair of handy bins that will get you by. If I found myself birding with just these, rather than my usual bins, it wouldn't be a wasted trip. And I think that is the testament to how good these are for the price they are. I highly recommend these.

I couldn’t get along with these at all. Yes they were small and nicely made but I didn’t find the magnification was enough. That’s my fault admittedly. But the real problem was that they were difficult to look through as the eye cups are incredibly small. You have to have them in exactly the correct position - the slightest movement and the scene goes black.

These binoculars for this price are a steal. The construction is robust with a rubberised body for protection against knocks and falls. Easy to adjust and focus and the magnification is just right for spotting wildlife. Took these on a forest walk and was delighted with them. They fold into a pocket sized dimension and they look good. For the price they are a bargain.

For general purpose use and for the price they're spot on. Lovely and small and light. Out of the pouch they will fit in a coat/jacket pocket. Image is bright and crisp. We're talking just under £15 not hundreds of pounds and for that you get a very useable, robust pair of binoculars. I'm happy with them.