https://www.atncorp.com/thermal-scope-thor-5-xd-1280-3-30x

Love 'em or hate 'em ATN just may make your next scope cheaper.

I don’t buy’em , possibly they could shift prices down BUT their 1280 scope has to work.

A crappy 1280 won’t move the needle across the Industry and I wish there was a full proof method to test the resolution .

Some scope makers say 4k this and high res that and the computer file shows the right pixel number while the video doesn’t correlate to the numbers …..

I call it China 4k or China 1280 if you will.

Time will tell the tale

I saw it as the SHOT Show and I broke my own rule. I always say never to judge a thermal inside a building, during the daylight or in an urban environment. The reason is, even a sub par or very low resolution thermal can actually look decent in those conditions. Get them out in real world hunting conditions and they shrink up quickly. But to my shock, the ATN 1280 actually didn't look as good as most 640's. It was the opposite effect..... I was not impressed to say the least.

I think a question should be, how can a company (with their reputation) sell the second ever 1280 hunting thermal scope for less than a great deal of the 640 resolution scopes on the market and it be of a good quality? Time will tell......

The manufacture of the 1280 core, aside from development costs (which are real and important...I don't mean to down play them), may not be much more expensive than a 640 core to produce. Infiray went with the "recoup development costs as quickly as possible with a unique product" and charge $18K for their unit. First player in the market gets to try whatever price they want and see what happens. Infiray has sold several units, but it isn't like much more than a few wealthy people or pro-staffers have them and are producing content. If there are hundreds or thousands of buyers of Infiray 1280 units, they are pretty quiet about it. I know a bunch of hunters and not a single one owns one and while some could afford it, they don't see how $18K will improve their hunting experience over what they already own. ATN is banking on economies of scale and charging significantly less and hope to sell a lot of units in the process and make up the development costs in smaller nibbles instead of Infiray's big bites. What they are doing or trying to do is capture market share. If they unit doesn't flop, they will likely be successful.

Looking at prices, ATN's other scopes seem to be reduced in price as well. That will potentially result in selling more of those scopes also.

As for ATN's reputation, I think you and I share the same opinion of the company. However, despite some of the garbage that they put out, they have a large and dedicated following. They will sell a lot of 1280 units. I highly suspect they will be ever bit as buggy as many of their other offerings. In a few years, they will either have the bugs worked out or will just abandon supporting the unit as they did with the original X-sight.

It may not look great for a 1280, but if it looks better (real or perceived) than 640 units for a comparable or lower price, people will buy it, even if it isn't 4x better as the resolution would imply. Sadly, I am afraid a lot of naive and/or new thermal users will spend the bucks to say they have a 1280 unit.

Looking at the tech specs

ATN doesn’t list the screen’s resolution

I wouldn’t be surprised if they put a 800x600 res screen on it to save a couple pennys !

R.I.P. cows

ROTFLMBFAO!!!

tears flowing!

DNS said," I highly suspect they will be ever bit as buggy as many of their other offerings. In a few years, they will either have the bugs worked out or will just abandon supporting the unit as they did with the original X-sight". It appears ATN has bitten off more than they can chew and the "bugs" are eating their lunch. The initial launch date was April or May and even now six months later retailers aren't getting any info about a release date.

They were demoing a 1280 scope at the PRS show in Navasota TX last month

They still weren’t sure on the screen resolution and it only looked impressive in white hot

I did seem improved since I last looked through the prototype in Jan 2023.

So, yeah just waiting for the release to see how it does but I wouldn’t want to be an early adopter - too many other solid 640 res units for less money right now to risk more on 1280 hype. . .

I have seen 2 videos now from the scope that were not from ATN proper. One was on FB and I can't find it now but it didn't look great. Then there is this guy who apparently is really ATN now. He has 2 coyote videos in this video. The first is during horrible conditions (rain, 100% humidity) and th other is during good thermal conditions (his claim). The two images don't look dissimilar to me and neither look great. He mentions a lot of distances in the video, mostly how far he is from the caller or the caller from him, but I must have missed the shot distance to the coyote. Given that it is a 2x scope and watching the zoom and how long for the shot to impact, I am guessing the coyote is under 100 yards and if not, not much more than 100.

DNS He didn't seem interested in talking about the scope. I appreciated the coyote kill but he could have least said more about the scopes performance. He was asked a couple of questions about it in the comments section but he didn't even reply to most questions except to say something about making adjustments.