I'm in doubt what to do and would appreciate your advise. I understand that you get what you pay for, but if I take a budget of £350 and want to get the best for that money, you can do the following:
1 Buy second hand an earlier version of the big brands - probably not their best line(something like 7 or 8 X 40).
2 Buy second hand a smaller size, but better quality line (same 7 or 8 x 20/25) with the latest coating T* or similar.
3 Buy new a second-tier brand, but with multi-coating, Bak4 etc?
The difficulty is that you can't really compare all possible offerings.
Appreciate your advice! Thanks, Rene.
Warranty is a big deal. I just sent some Vortex for repair, hoping for the guarantee on the web site.
If you find the very thing you want, the model that was absolutely your dream, used, Get that. Otherwise get mid price Minox, Pentax, Vortex, Meopta etc etc. You might look at low [price] end Swarovski and Leica. Zeiss conquest are not worth the effort, my Pentax beat my Zeiss. I still have the Pentax.