I have $1500 to $2500 to spend on a thermal monocular, are these good choices?

[edubz]

I have a seek compact pro for andriod and it has a 320 by 240 sensor, and its not that great, its noisy and it never looked like their promotiomal videos

 I also had the seek sheildpro hand held for law enforcement and didn't see any difference and these are the 2 thermals I have tried and a 320 by 240 sensor just isnt cutting it.

So now I want something nice, I want to take advantge of free returns on amazon or ebay and I am looking around, so the next thing I see are 384. My whole thing is, my 320 x 240 sensor is not the much smaller then then 384x288 sensors, so I have to look at other specs.

AGM Taipan TM19-384 Thermal Imaging Monocular 12 Micron 384x288 (50 Hz) $1600 new $1000 used on amazon, spec wise it has a 5o hz refresh rate, its built well, has Pixel Interval 12 μm, FFC (Flat Field Correction) =Auto, Manual, External Correction, NETD, Less than 35 mk (@25°C), F#=1.0 and a 19MM lens f 1.0 lens.

the Pulsar Axion Thermal Monocular is $2000 and it has the same size sensor as my seek compact pro, why spend $1500 for the same sensor so i pass.

for the same price is see a Scion PTM166 which has a 640 × 512 sensor, 60 hz refresh rate, some kind of boston core, 14 mm lens, but I cant find what the NETD is, still this is the best priced 640 sensor monocular that I could find, although its said its made more law enforcement, and I dont know if they use bad software. the shield dpro I used only had 3 color modes and the consumer model had like 7. plus it uses 6x CR123A 3V Lithium Battery, and it doesnt mention its rechargeable or maybe it is I dont know, but I know the AGM can be charged and used with  an external battery pack.


I have an extra $500 I am willing to spend, but I cant find another with a 640 sensor thats $2000.

Is there any other options out there for my budget? maybe I am overlooking something?

[svgurus]

i thought there would be better ones) 1000$ for used agm 25 f1 384 is quite good, but i didnt read their reviews, if you saw some pictures from them post here.
Scion is quite nice but the lens is too wide for birding and its hard to replace it on this device. Afaik their bosons are С grade 60mk, breach for sure has it. They have many bad pixels and noise, maybe thats why i dont find pictures from them)
Axion xm30s (according to pixel count) is bit noisy and not sharp, no used helions on amazon?
seek is worse that any of these anyway))

[svgurus]

https://www.opticsplanet.com/pulsar-helion-xq28f-thermal-monocular.html - here you can buy pulsar Helion xq28 for 2000$, the last one) also, xq38 for 2800 and 38-2 for 3000 which is better) there are also axions xm38 for 2200 - it has very big magnification for its size but is noisy and has worse details than helion/axion xq. And there is axion xq38 for 2500, you'll love the size but many reviews say sharpness in helion xq38-1/2 is better
I think agm for 1000 or xq28 is best bang for buck, but you can make your own research) agm monocular that you posted before looks a lot like Chinese hikvision owl/lynx, they are sold in Russia, iray is better though price is nice) also there is ATN ots-4t, it offers 50mm lens for 2500$ and same resolution, but is heavier - 900g vs 400 with pulsar

[edubz]

https://www.opticsplanet.com/pulsar-helion-xq28f-thermal-monocular.html - here you can buy pulsar Helion xq28 for 2000$, the last one) also, xq38 for 2800 and 38-2 for 3000 which is better) there are also axions xm38 for 2200 - it has very big magnification for its size but is noisy and has worse details than helion/axion xq. And there is axion xq38 for 2500, you'll love the size but many reviews say sharpness in helion xq38-1/2 is better
I think agm for 1000 or xq28 is best bang for buck, but you can make your own research) agm monocular that you posted before looks a lot like Chinese hikvision owl/lynx, they are sold in Russia, iray is better though price is nice) also there is ATN ots-4t, it offers 50mm lens for 2500$ and same resolution, but is heavier - 900g vs 400 with pulsar

I see a pulsar xp50 version 2 on alibaba for $3200 brand new. Is this the better model out of the line up? all the other ones have a 384 sensor and I already have a skeep compact pro with a 320 sensor I cant see myself spending $3000 on a pulsar xq38 for $3000 when the XP50 version 2 is $3200

but its alibaba in china and I am scared to buy from them, keep thinking I will get a box of rocks in the mail or some other cheap brand name.

im going to look into thaT and check some reviews, which is better the XP or ATN?

[edubz]

well I ended up buying a AGM tiapan 25 MM lens for $1300 on ebay. I doubt I would see one for $1000, $1300 is the lowest I saw it for and the lowest the guy would go.


I do have the money to get a pulsar 2 XP 50 from china, but this gives me 30 days to use the AGM25 and it just might be enough for me to be honest. One thing about the AGM25 I was always impressed with the quality of the videos, they have very low noise, and are very clear.




and 1100 it still seems pretty clear, I mean you can see its a house.

[svgurus]

Americans always tend to buy American)) and have more offers on cheap used devices, so you made logical step) I'm not an expert in all monoculars, only those I have slightest intension and ability to buy, hikvision is not of them) and America as I see you have chinese-looking imagers with other brands - Iray as Bering optics, Hikvision as Agm, etc- they might have some differences from ones sold in Russia and I wont be able to buy them cheap, so sorry I have other ton of reviews/specsheets to look for/read) ATN and Helion XQ 1/2 50 are few ones of imagers that have 50mm with quite decent 384 sensor, so they give a long reach, and XQ2 50 just got firmware upgrade to improve image sharpness. ATN isn't sold in RF too and its quite hard to get their uncompressed photos/videos, so i know few about them.
XP2 50 is a bit of underdog now - for 3 years XP1 was best, then in 2020 they rolled out XP2 with minor improvements and in 9 months(or bit more) they teased everyone with xp2pro at almost same price but much improved(and only this xp model gets new app and sharpness-improving firmware), so you might see it closer to 3500 or even 3000 used when xp2pro will be in stock everywhere in US for couple of months(RF has shortages right now)
About Chinese sellers - they can scam you so you need to look at reviews, just like on ebay. And maybe you can have serious troubles with ITAR after importing 50hz thermal thingy, read about this law or ask here in itar-related topics
I like noise in XP1, from artistic perspective) my currently most used one is made in 2017, maybe its even 60mk, not 50 like later ones) noise can add perceived sharpness sometimes, de-noised pictures look a bit more washed-out, even if have same amount of detail. Helion xq1 lineup is really outdated and doesn't give picture worth even 2000$(im spoiled by Russian prices), but if you will buy XP, xq28 might be easiest way of getting 28mm wide lens, i can send you adapter drawing if you have fellow steel cutter) or maybe I can look for used 28mm lens here and sell you through ebay(never did, but thats real and legal afaik))
Looks like there aren't much monocular users here, you can look for hunt/guns related forums, i found these couple from links posted here - https://www.ar15.com/forums/Armory/Night-Vision/18/?page=1  http://www.predatormastersforums.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=3&page=1 pm me if you find something more interesting)