Am I an Idiot?
New StingIR 384. Advertised as a 1x , with up to 4x digital zoom. Advertised as helmet and weapon mountable.
Image is great. I love it. But, on 1x the base magnification, everything looks like 50% reduced size through the viewfinder. It's not 1x to me. Field of view looks closer to 30 degrees rather than the 16ish that's listed in the specifications.
Digital 2x looks like 2x, as do 3 and 4.
This seems very wrong to me. Why would I want a device that makes things smaller to the eye as a weapon or head mounted unit? Because I don't think I do.
This perplexed me enough to email agm's customer service. After asking several times if this was correct or incorrect, and the reply being "send it in" each time, I payed the $100 insured ups and sent it in.
About a week later I received a brand new unit via ups with no explanation. So I emailed the same CS rep and she stated the tech acknowledge it was not 1x, tried a firmware update, and bricked the unit. So they sent me a new one. I was hoping for a better explanation and for the tech to at least verify the replacement unit didn't have any issues.
Now for context, I was also told that the unit could use cr123, cr123a, 18650, AND double cr123a's with an included 3rd battery extention that isn't shown in the manual but came with my device. I asked for verification on this a second time and got the same answer. I'm not going to try it because that makes no sense to this idiot.
The new unit has a very recent build date, looks and feels exactly the same, and has the exact same issue. At supposedly 1x, everything appears about 50% smaller than real life. So what is an idiot supposed to do? Am I totally wrong about how this device is supposed to function? Is something close to a 1:1 image at 1x not a realistic expectation for thermal monoculars?
Update:
Got a 2nd replacement from AGM customer service. It has a perfect 1x, 1:1 unity image. The qc card states it has a 2022 build date, but the clip on functions work properly. Huge thanks to Teri in their CS department for taking care of me.