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Pros - Lightweight and compact - Good for a kid's toy Cons - Soft focus = blurry images - Easy to drop - Misadvertised field of view

Welcome to my review of the Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular. This is a small and lightweight monocular targeted at casual sportsmen, avid sight-seers, and, as Tasco puts it, parents of highly curious kids. How well does it perform, though? Let’s find out!

What Do I Get in the Box?

The first thing you probably want to know is what all you’re getting for your hard-earned money when you buy the Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular. In the box, you should find:

• Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular
• Hand Strap
• Carrying Pouch

The hand strap is useable, but I would rather see a neck lanyard for carrying the monocular around the neck. Luckily, the handstrap is removable, and I custom crafted a lanyard for my Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular from 550 paracord–much better for long-term carrying.

How Much Magnification Do I Get?

The Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular hasa 25mm objective lens, which provides 10X magnification. Clarity and resolution is not the greatest, with soft focus of anything further away than 25 feet. This monocular is clearly designed more as a toy than something for serious use, since I doubt I would even be able to make out a tom turkey from a hen from more than 10 yards.

What Type of Optics Does the Monocular Have?

The Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular features roof prism optics and multi-coated lenses. The lenses bead water away readily, but the monocular is obviously not nitrogen-filled, because it fogs up very easily.

The focus ring spins smoothly, but with just enough friction to prevent you from accidentally adjusting the focus after you’ve acquired your image. Unfortunately, if you try to focus on something further away than 25 feet, you won’t get a crisp, clear image. The inexpensive optics inside this monocular simply cannot provide good resolution for objects far away.

The field of view on this monocular is advertised as 288 feet at 115 meters (125.766 yards), but I don’t see how that’s possible. In my own use of the monocular, I’ve found the field of view to be more like 20 feet at 100 yards, which is unforgivably narrow for any monocular.

What’s the Body Like On This Monocular?

The body is made from rubberized armor, and this rubber gives it good durability. Bear in mind, this monocular is very small, measuring just 11.25″ long with a 1″ tube diameter. The monocular body is designed with spiral ridges around the middle of the body to aid in gripping, but I find it very easy for the monocular to slip out of your hand. I guess that’s why Tasco chose to provide a hand strap instead of a neck lanyard.

The one good thing about this monocular is how lightweight it is. The monocular is just 4.7 ounces, so it barely adds any weight at all to my kit when I choose to carry it along with me.

How Durable Is the Monocular?

I’ve dropped the Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular several times, and the drops have not made the optics any less clear than they already were. (I checked for the soft focus before I ever dropped it, by the way). It’s a durable little monocular, but that durability does not quite make up for the lack of image quality.

How Well Does the Tasco Essentials 10×25 Compact Roof Monocular Work in the Field?

As I said previously, this monocular would probably be fantastic as a toy for children, allowing them to “spy” things from a few feet away. It’s durable enough to withstand the abuse children can give their toys, but the image quality from beyond 25 feet is not good enough for this monocular to be truly useful for either the hunter or the sight-seer.