Home > Consumer Reviews > Meade Travel View 8-24X50 Zoom Porro Prism Binocular

Crisp images, no problem when zooming. I can even take off my glasses and still get clear images, that's something I could never get using Konus binoculars (don't waste your money, forget Konus). I highly recommend Meade products if you are looking for the best quality-money deal. I love my meade binos...

a few observations about these...VERY narrow field of view, useful only for truely long distance observation. focus not only shifts during zoom but in my experience is very difficult to get it to focus sharply while at max zoom...focus and image is absolutely fabulous at less than max zoom levels...this will probably go in the closet for use on my boat, I will be buying some else for casual "site seeing" terrestrial viewing. good but not great...not an all-in-one, best of both worlds unit as I expected.

This is the second pair of binocuars that I have owned with similar specifications. The first was sold by Sears, under their name, for about $130. They are no longer sold. (The Sears binoculars were banged up so much that they weren't much good anymore.)

I don't think the quality of the Meade binoculars is quite as good as the Sears. They just don't seem to be quite as "substantial". However, the optics must be about the same, becuse looking close or at a distance, using 8x or 24x, the image I see is about the same for both pair of binoculars.

I think these are a good buy for the "casual" user.

Got this from Bestbuy.com. I'm not a experienced user of binos as this is the second pair I've owned so far. The view is ok in broad daylight. The zoom lever is very stiff, turning it while viewing is near impossible. But the most I noticed(disliked) was shoddy build. One of the object lenses has some stuff around the edge that looks like metal shavings. The other is not even circular, got two small gaps, each about 1/6" long, between the lens and barrel at 9 and 12 o'clock looking from front. I'm sending it back.

It came with a bag/pouch, neck strap, cleaning cloth, lens caps, and a generic user manual that applies to all Meade binos so there was no specs listed for this model.

I had been looking for the perfect pair of binoculars for quite sometime now. After reading the reviews for the "Meade Infinity 8-24x50 Full-Size Zoom Binocular" at Amazon.com, I finally made up my mind to buy those. Unluckily for me, they were out of stock, not only at Amazon, but pretty much everywhere else too. So, I called up the Meade Customer Service, and somebody there told me that they were discontinuing their Infinity range, and replacing most of models with the new Travel View range. I checked back at Amazon, and although a Travel View model was available with almost the same specifications, nobody had reviewed them yet. I was a bit skeptical at first (...)

I finally received them this week, and I am REALLY impressed by their performance. Their image quality is exceptionally spectacular, and gives you a crystal clear magnification, whether you are viewing an object at 8x magnification or at 24x, or anywhere in between, for that matter. And the 50 mm diameter of the objective lenses (along with the fact that they are fully-coated) enables them to gather a great amount of light to give you a very bright and sharp image quality. The eyepiece lenses feature a good amount of eye relief - I wear eyeglasses, and had no problem looking through the Binoculars.

I put it through 2 tests - firstly I tried looking at the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Tower through my apartment window. I live on the New Jersey waterfront, right across the river from Manhattan, and at 24x magnification, both the buildings looked just as big, and just as clear as they do when I look at them, standing on the street right below them. And last night, I took the Binoculars to the Metropolitan Opera with me. I was sitting in the Family Circle area, but the view that I had with 8x magnification must have been better than the view that most of the people sitting in the Orchestra section were getting. And when I zoomed in to the 24x setting, I was even able to see the facial expressions of the performers so clearly that I could even see them blink their eyes. I don't know how I ever used to survive without them. There is no way I am going back to my old 4x25 Opera glasses.

After saying so much about their image quality, I should also tell you about some other great features of these Binoculars. First of all, they are very ergonomically designed - the complete body is covered with a soft rubber coating, which makes them easy to hold, even for a long duration, giving your hands a very good grip on them. The controls on the Binoculars, like the zoom lever and the focus knob, are also very conveniently located, enabling the user to move them while continuing to look through them. The other good news is that you won't need to keep adjusting the controls very often - my focus setting worked for all magnification values from 8x to 24x, giving me a clear picture at all times.

The size of the Binoculars might be attributed to the Porro Prism arrangement inside them, which provide the actual magnification, and space for the Prisms to move, to provide the zoom features. They might appear a bit bigger than the much smaller Binoculars people are normally used to, but they are not that heavy. They come with a neck strap, and lens covers for all of the eyepiece lenses and objective lenses. Also included is a soft cloth to clean the lenses, and soft nylon carrying case, which has a shoulder strap of its own.

All in all - A GREAT BUY - Highly Recommended for everybody !!!