SV406P 20-60X80 ED Spotting Scope for Phone Birding Photography

For the money, a decent scope. A bit hard to focus on higher magnification, but still let’s in lots of light. Overall satisfied with purchase.

Very pleased with this scope. The SV406P has many features that usually cost much more - accepts standard telescope eyepieces, ED glass, dual speed focuser, decent eye relief, excellent image quality especially at low powers and a very well-designed soft case. I don't think a better scope can be had in this price range. I am a satisfied customer. I have previously purchased some SVBONY telescope adapter products and found them to be well worth the low price.

Wow. I just returned home from a short bird watching hike to test this new scope out. This is my first spotting scope, but I've been fortunate to use others including a Vortex scope and the gold standard, swarovski. This scope isn't a $2500 swarovski and that's totally ok! This is a incredibly clear, low chromatic aberration scope. To say that I'm impressed would be a understatement. Today was ideal weather, maybe a bit too sunny, but I expect this scope to be fine at twilight and in foggy days. Who should buy this scope? Anyone wanting to up their birding game who still has student loan debt. Can't wait to try some digiscoping!

I will use this scope for hunting and game/ bird watching. I selected it over other alternatives based on price and features. Like all spotting scopes in this price range it is made in China. The glass is good, and I would guess that at least some of the glass is ED as advertised. Color is good, and the scope works well in low light. As with all scopes, the quality of the image reduces with magnification but not badly. The eyepiece is between 22mm and 25mm, somewhat small but again standard for the price. A larger eyepiece would aid viewing at higher magnification.

My wife and I are bird and wildlife watchers and we wanted to complement our Leica binoculars with a spotting scope at a reasonable price. We are very pleased with this scope, which we have had for a year now. I bring the scope on birding trips to see the birds clearly at a distance. I also live very close to the beach in Southern California and I use the scope to watch the for whales, dolphins, and shore birds. We have gray whales that migrate from the north to Mexico in the south during the winter and the zoom works great for first spotting the whales and then zooming in to see details.

The scopes controls for power changes and parallax adjustments are excellent. At lower to mid power brightness and clarity is excellent. As the power goes up as many mid cost scopes, the sharpness of clarity is diminished. It is not terrible by any means but your eye must be centered in the scope at the highest powers or you lose the picture.To be fair I was comparing it to a scope that cost twice what it cost. It does offer very good sharpness and clarity for its price. Should one buy it? Yes, unless you want the best it light gathering and sharpness.

I have looked through a variety of spotting scopes from super low end to some really expansive pieces of glass. I would say this one is on the mid level. Look elsewhere if you are expecting a high end piece of glass.

I did a side by side comparison with this scope against the Gosky 20-60x80 ED, Athlon Argos 20-60x85, and the Vortex HD Diamondback 20-60x85. The Vortex and Athlon scopes came out on bottom simply due to the severe chromatic aberration at high power. Both the Athlon and Vortex displayed acute color fringing that made the target picture unusable. On the other hand the ED glass in the Gosky and Svbony scopes provided clear crisp images with no detectable CA even at high power. My suggestion is to avoid any low-to-mid priced spotting scopes that don’t advertise ED glass. It makes a huge difference in image quality. I’m keeping the Svbony and Gosky scopes and sending back the Athlon and Vortex models.

I will admit, I was a bit hesitant. There was NO WAY I was dropping $1000 on a spotting scope after I keep dropping thousands on scopes for my rifles, but I really needed a spotting scope. I figured I needed to keep under $300, and just get the best I could. I actually discovered SVBONY on Youtube. I did my research. I was originally going to get SV406 as it was just a raging deal given the stats and the positive feedback I was seeing. One review on Youtube did a distance comparison against a vortex and you could definitely see some fuzziness on the edges and color degradation on the 406, vs. the Vortex. Not surprising, given its a Vortex. Then I discovered the ED version, the 406P. Looks like it was released in Nov. Not many reviews, but given the reviews on the 406, I spent the extra to get the 406P. Im pretty pleased so far. It feels solid, sturdy, easy to use. Had it out to 100 yards, and it was great. Will need to try and push the distance to a bit to see how it works, and hopefully it holds up. When it comes to my gear, I usually "spend more" to get the trustworthy names--vortex, leupold, etc. I would always prefer to buy American, or a solid European product, but this was too much of a deal to pass up. I'm given you a great, early review, SVBONY, I hope you hold up in the long run, but for now, I'm pretty happy.

I love this scope. Being my first scope, I didn't want to spend too much and this exceeds all the marks! I primarily use it for birding and it has really helped increase my ID range. I can ID waterfowl clear across the lake that I frequent. It has also allowed me to ID all kinds of sea ducks that were out of range of the binocs. While the view at the far zoom range is not the best, it still works well enough to get a confident ID. I have no problem with the weight as I have carried it (with the tripod) 6+ mile treks. I usually just rest the tripod on my shoulder with the scope on the tripod. And the customer service rep was SUPER NICE! I highly recommend this scope for people looking to increase their range and don't have the budget for a high end scope.