Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you are like me, you have been waiting for this for almost 60 years. Ahem... I mean 30. Anyway, seriously, I couldn't count the # of times I've thought "man, if I only had night vision, that would be So Cool!". Alas, that just wasn't possible. Then one day about 40 years ago, ahem... So, I've heard, there was a war movie where they were using this giant contraption that probably weighed 800# to SEE THE ENEMY IN THE DARK ! Oh my goodness... SO Cool ! But obviously out of reach for me. Then, about 30 years ago, (I heard), there was another movie featuring night vision.... This time, it was briefcase sized. Hmmm, not bad... I wonder..... So, I searched and searched, all over the inter-umm-magazines and catalogs. No luck. Then, about 20 years ago.... It happened again, but this time it fit INTO a breifcase, AND I has reasonable access to a world of info. It took awhile. Then it happened. THERE IT IS FOR SALE ! Oh dang... Small print says "For sale to Military and police only". OHH MANNNN. Not like I could afford the $32,000.00 price tag anyway, but still. No fair. Good thing I'm patient, but HURRY UP ! So... Time goes by. About 10 years ago, maybe it was a James Bond, I don't remember, but WOW! The Action Hero this time pulled it out of his breast pocket! Nice! (you youngsters may not know what a breast pocket is... (Umm, neither did I), just google it. Anyway, my heart rate skyrocketed and I couldn't wait to, once again, go searching. THERE IT IS ! And it's AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC! I ran for my wallet... I started to fill out the order form... Whoa ! Wait ! Are they High? $2,700.00 ? I very carefully slid my Visa back into it's comfy cubby in my wallet and sent it for nap time. Then I sat down and cried. But I digress. It's 2022. My wife's birthday was coming up. Time to surf. Amazon of course. As I was approaching the end of the customary (mandatory, I think) one hour surf through the Home Page, Daily Deals, etc. (everyone does that, right?), off to the side of the page, I saw those Magic and ever so Mystical words, NIGHT VISION ! And it was UNDER $2,700 ! My heart rate started to climb... Then it looked me in the face and said "Ya Right, don't believe it. It's not legit. It can't possibly actually work. It's probably a flashlight and some cheap binoculars. Go back to the Kitchen Section". I did. For a minute. But just for "educational" purposes, I had to check out at least a couple of the listings. I did. I checked out ALL OF THEM! While I was looking, the thought occurred to me that my wonderful wife loves to look for the Owels and Racoons and other such creatures that stir in the night when she takes our dogs out.... And she loves to take pictures of them too.. Well, during the daytime anyway. Surely she'll LOVE to have a NIGHT VISION CAMERA for her birthday ! Right ? (I'm so smooth) Wow, it worked ! I figured that if it didn't work well that she'd just return it, along with probably a couple other items. ******* Actual Product Review Begins *****"* Guess what ? SHE KEPT IT !!! IT WORKS !!! You're a big boy or girl or whatever. You don't need me to tell you every little tiny detail. Besides, who likes those really long reviews that waste your time? So here's the deal. This is not a flimsy El Cheapo kind of child's toy. This is actually a pretty nicely made product that does amazing things. I'm not saying it's military grade or made of unobtainium or anything like that, I'm just saying that it's an awesome adult toy (or should I say toy for adults? Does that sound better?), Anyway, it doesn't take long to figure out all the buttons however, I do definitely recommend glancing for a couple of minutes at the rather nicely printed instruction sheet. It does a pretty clear job of explaining the ones that you can't figure out by yourself in 3 minutes. So then as you anxiously await for dark and head outside as the sun starts going down, you start using it just in standard mode looking through it like binoculars (except you hold it backwards) (oh, and you don't pull them up to your eyes because you're just going to look at a screen just like your cell phone) (you'll get used to it), but the thing is you'll start to notice as it gets darker and darker that you can still see the things you're looking at through it as though it's daylight. It'll still be in full color and reasonably clear. And the zoom is crazy, actually they seem to be happiest at 20, 30, maybe 40 yards. As it gradually gets even darker and it's almost actually, well, dark, you'll be even more amazed because it just keeps on working. Then when it gets really dark it'll switch over to the infrared, I guess it is, mode. Which means your view turns into black and white, but no biggie, because it's so exciting just to be able to see things that you'll just be having a blast. And it's still a rather clear picture. If you're like me.. (sounds familiar) .. you may actually be giggling and dancing and prancing around the yard. (Just don't tell anybody I said that.) Seriously though, it really does work and it's a lot of fun. I'm sure there's lots of specific uses for it such as nature, personal protection, zombie apocalypse monitoring, and things like that, but to me they're just fun and interesting and I love going out to look for the nature in the trees. Speaking of that, at some point you'll notice that as you look at the lens, it looks like there's sort of a flashlight thing pointing at whatever you're looking at. It's kind of a weird sensation. My first instinct was to move a closer and aimed it down at my feet and sure enough it got brighter and I could swear there was a flashlight just shooting out the front, but then as I move the unit off to the side and just look down at where it was aiming there is no darn light. Then I looked at the front of the unit and there is no light (except for a little red light you'll notice) it's kind of freaky but I guess that's what the infrared looks like through the lens. It is actually lighting up what it aims at. But you can't see it. Unless you look through the lens of course. It's just super cool. Unfortunately, at this point I had to let my wife play with it for a while. When I got it back I realized that I had totally forgotten that this thing is also a camera and video camera. I checked it out. Not bad at all ! It actually works too! Amazing! Full functionality of everything that the ad promised ! It even came with a huge memory card! I'm not a photography expert but I definitely do appreciate good clear crisp pictures. I'm used to the ones from my fancy high end flip flop phone. I haven't spent enough time with this yet to tell you whether or not this is as good as or better than my phone, but with the first few glances I would say it's pretty close. And that's really good, especially considering that this thing was like 1/15th the price of my phone and my phone doesn't see very well in pitch black darkness. Bottom line: . Yes it does work. Yes it's a blast. Yes I recommend it. Yes you should buy it, Yes... I mean, what could possibly go wrong? That's my highest rating score of 5 Yeses ! Now..... if we could just get this thing to surf the net and take phone calls.... Oh mann.... now I have to start waiting again for THAT upgrade ! Talk to you again in 10 more years. Good luck, have fun! , and God bless.