Pulsar Merger LRF XL50 Thermal Binoculars

I have now had the Merger LRF XL 50 since January 2024 and have used them for many 100’s of hours/ 100’s of stalks. Overall I think they are a great tool, with good clear optical display, good sensitivity and good resolution. I think they are expensive for the gains you get over the XP range for deer use, spotting deer in dense woodland, both do this well, having used the XP 50 previously, I do not feel these get me on to many more deer. They certainly do indicate covered subjects well, where there are spots of heat through cover, this is definitely a little better. Even after this amount of use, I find the button selections annoying, often selecting the wrong function, primarily as my natural finger placement is not aligned to their placement. The rubber sun visor cups on the ocular lens are a complete faff, rotating continually to any other position than the required one, with the left sunshade more often than not blocking the proximity sensor and meaning the binoculars stay on all the time. Pressing and holding the power button for a short duration turns off the display, so alleviates this somewhat, but then whats the use of the proximity sensor? The sunshades are already splitting, with the left one I have to keep re-aligning now having parted from the eye piece ring, completely, at least this has fixed the proximity sensor issue! The lens caps are better than previous offerings, but I found the right range finder cap became loose, so it rotated freely, often blocking the range finder, I was unaware until checking, so I then had to rotate it, loosing valuable seconds. The caps are easily removable and can be replaced, there is a screw plate within to tighten, but to tighten sufficiently to reduce rotation really required the use of a keyed tool, I have manged to tighten mine but it was a problem doing so. The best feature is the reduced eyestrain, and this also allows reduced brightness to limit the effects of night vision blindness, but of course both eyes are affected with binoculars, so low light first and last light can be affected, but I have found this impact very low. The range finder is poor, really struggling to determine a deer at 300m often much less unless conditions are ideal, it seems to require a very bright reflective surface to work well, with no near vegetation, even then it is only possible to range using the scan mode, with the single range function failing more often than not, with initial ranging of deer often impossible, until you close that gap. I am comparing against my Zeiss Victory RF binoculars, which are far more capable in this department where my now sold Swarovski range finder was better again, this is very disappointing at this price point, I was expecting much better results. The range capture brackets box shown covers too large an area for pinpoint ranging compared to many deer, so it is not obvious where to aim exactly, this is my largest disappointment with these. I have just returned from a trip in Canada and really struggled to range in the massive section block fields there which are 640 acres, managing often to only range within about 400m, unless its a bus, which achieved 1172m! The biggest issue with this is I often will set myself up if “still” hunting as I was often there and range a series of objects for quick reference, this it failed spectacularly to do even on scan, not coping with hedges or trees or bales for that matter unless withing 200m or very large indeed, managing a stack of very large square bales at round 460m in scan mode after multiple passes. Switch on time is very acceptable, meaning you do not always need them on all the time, but in practice, I find leaving them on with the display turned off by button press is best, at readiness , whilst extending battery life. I use my unit in semi-Automatic refresh mode so as not to have a calibration done at a crucial point, this works well, with a single press of the power button initiating. The thermal sensor stabilises well, having been allowed around 4-5 minutes warm up, thereafter calibration is required every 20-30 mins, or more if conditions dictate. I use white hot almost exclusively so as to enable me to learn to read the display better, switching modes I find only serves to diminish your ability to interpret the picture as you are learning again. It does take time to accurately read and interpret the picture and with time you will readily identify species, and even sex in certain times of year, where antlers are growing especially. After that the antlers show cold, but are still identifiable if the animal is still or close by. Moving object or scanning present display blurring issues, as the data is digitally manipulated and enhanced, the processor is too slow, this causes a blur effect as the display struggles to update fast enough, the only option is to slow your scan, but this is not allays possible. identifying what is not a deer comes with experience but the resolution of these makes it relatively simple most of the time. Battery life with the optional standard battery pack fitted copes with most stalking morning or evening stalks with ease, if out for a full day, then careful use including turning off is needed to extend life, certainly on my recent trip, charging in day was needed to complete a full days hunt. Plugging the unit in if on a vehicle allows use whilst charging and this was useful, but seemed to come with some baggage as the unit became confused as to its power status on a number of occasions and at one point failed to charge the front option battery at all overnight. I also found in slight minus figures, of around -3-5C the until started to miss-behave, operating but failing to turn on the Amloed displays whilst appearing to function normally, this is disappointing since they are designed to operate at up to -25C. Holding the reset button for >10s was then required to re-set followed by power up, this seemed to resolve both the battery issues and the display issue, whats worrying me is the unit has very intermittently now gone no display in normal temperatures, requiring re-set, is this a fault developing? The adjustable eyepiece width is on a sliding left ocular display, this works but is only just wide enough for my generous head size and is a little awkward if not only for the fact we are all used to binoculars swiveling on a central axis, such as the Zeiss LRF models, which I think would be much more comfortable and intuitive to use. Overall, would I buy these again, maybe, but for the money I am not sure there is value over the good old XP or XL monocular, and I am disappointed at the rangefinder capabilities which are of course one of the reasons these are so expensive. There is definitely value in binocular vision, but I am struggling to say this is enough for the considerable investment, especially given I am starting to experience software glitches which worries me on durability.