It is an interesting thermal. It is an entry level sort of unit, NOT made by Burris. It is made in China and is basically a modified GuideIR unit...
http://www.guideirusa.com/product/g...text= Model TS425 , ≤50mk 28 more rows
Runs on a standard button battery, but I believe a rechargeable one comes with it.
Maybe you and I have different ideas of what a 'button battery' is. Button batteries are the small, disc/button shaped, or very squat cylinder batteries like you find in watches and what not. The Burris runs on an 18650 lithium-ion battery which is most decidedly not a button battery.
Button battery reference...
http://linuxfocus.org/~guido/button...he same numbers prefixed by different letters.
I really like the idea of an 18650 rechargeable battery, although 18650 batteries have a rather notorious history, mostly due to counterfeits and fakes. They can and do pose a fire risk, if you are not very careful with them.
https://www.cpsc.gov/th/Newsroom/Ne...-from-Battery-Packs-and-Used-to-Power-Devices
https://www.engadget.com/cpsc-warning-fire-risk-loose-18650-lithiumion-061613315.html
Instead of a crapload of various buttons and screens, it has one dial that controls everything.
Actually, it has at least three operating system controls. It has a power button, a dial, and a selection button inside the dial. The dial button combination brings up a series of on screen menus which are toggled through using the dial and options selected using the button. It sounds like this makes everything easier to use and it may be easier to learn to use, but is not necessarily the most efficient means of operation in the field. The advantage of multiple buttons is that they have different function, often key functions, such that you don't have to toggle through a series of menus in order to find what you want to change.
Where companies producing thermals have issues is in what options that they grant the easiest access to for the user. I am not sure what iteration of menus system Burris is using as to whether or not they put the most important features first.
The control dial and button are located on the left-hand side of the scope. This favors right-handed shooters, FYI.
MSRP on the 50mm is around $4k. Street price should be in the $3,300ish range
Street price for the 50mm is less. Optics Planet already has them at $3k in pre sales, plus offering 10% off coupons.
https://www.opticsplanet.com/burris...5&cnxclid=16195719576673454944110090302008005
The image through them looks decent for 400x300 resolution (PAL standard, IIRC). It appears to have good thermal sensitivity overall, but I have yet to see anybody not associated with Burris produce any results from the units from varied environmental conditions.
You mentioned being able to see dogs at 100 yards. You should be able to hunt them at twice that distance with this unit.
The units also have picture in picture, which I find really nice to use. It was a feature if not pioneered by Pulsar for the civilian market, then certainly popularized by Pulsar for the civilian market. Early Burris videos show overlap between the main image crosshairs and the pic-n-pic image which was somewhat disconcerting. Hopefully, they have worked out that bug.
You mentioned the thermal hot tracker option that tracks the hottest target on screen. It is another one of those interesting features, but the downside to that is that if your intended target isn't the hottest target on the screen then the highlighted hot target can be distracting. Even worse is when there are multiple targets that same high heat level and now you have all sorts of confusing business on the screen because it isn't the hottest target, but all the hottest targets. Which is the right one? I would consider this as one of the least useful features, but with that said, every company that sells thermal scopes has some features that are really good and also seem to include some sort of boneheaded features.
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Assuming that the units do well in the field, I suspect it will be a good seller. It will certainly operate inside of the typical hunting distances of the vast majority of hunters. A lot of people will be willing to buy it based on name recognition and the fact that it isn't super expensive for a thermal. In fact, it is quite reasonably priced. At the current time, there is high demand for thermals in the market, especially low end thermals. I don't doubt the initial offerings will sell out in short order.