I've had a chance to play around with the 1x prism from PA a bit more, and run it in a class over the weekend. I've got three of these things now, so I had better like them. 
The good:
- the glass is very clear, the reticle is sharp and can be focused to make up for some eyeball differences.
- the 13 mounting options included in the box are nice. If you're just on an AR it's fine to just have a high mount, but for non-ARs, shotguns, and other oddballs being able to fine tune the mount without extra cost is big
- you don't need power to make it work, when zeroing or plinking at steel at the range I just leave it off and use the etched reticle.
- won't wash out in low light (was in a class with a night shoot and when people had their dots turned down to lower settings hitting a close target with 10 billion lumens of white light there would be enough light to lose the dot. I had a 1-8x with an etched reticle so when it got suddenly bright I still had something to aim with and this 1x should work the same way)
- it's got a few hash marks for ranges, so you can learn some hold-overs and have something to reference vs. just a dot
The bad:
- the battery cover on the dial starts to open when I try to dial the illumination in the 'wrong' way. the fix is to dial the other way, or remember to retighten but that's just lame. it works in both directions, so it shouldn't come apart when you use one.
- the OFF position (0) has to line up with a little arrow on the body of the optic, and it's hard to see with crappy eyes and with the lower settings and NV settings not visible in daylight you can't be sure it's off just by looking. I put a silver paint pen mark on the 0 on the dial and the body, line them up and it's off
- the thing turns off when the dial gets bumped. At one point in the class I had my rifle laying propped on a 4x4 on the ground (the staging table was full) and it got kicked a bit which made the dial move just a tiny amount. I just happened to check the illumination before I got to the line and noticed it was off 'between' settings (there is only one off, not an off in-between each setting). The second time I don't know what happened, must have been bumped with me just carrying the rifle slung all day but in the middle of a drill I noticed the reticle was dark. I'm so used to having it off in the day that it didn't really register to me that anything was amiss until I remembered after that I wanted to run it ON the whole class.
The meh:
- 1 MOA adjustments, pretty coarse but this is a 1x and I'm not a 1 MOA shooter with irons or a 1x at any distance 1 MOA would make a difference at
- no covers on the adjustments. it 'seems' like they wouldn't get bumped but I don't like it so I've taken to putting gaffers tape over them as a precaution.
- the bikini cover is chinchy
- the circle around the dot, it's cool looking when on the bench and showing off to your friends, but not really sure it's needed at speed, just some extra noise in your field of view but I just might not know any better
Overall, it's not bad for the price. PA just raised it 10%, but that's sadly not unexpected. I really, really like how it works without power so for things that get staged and left it makes total sense to have an optic that doesn't require batteries or functioning electronics to work. I need more time behind it to get proficient so I can do head-to-head drills with a red dot and see if it works just as well up close, because I know it's better at range with it's sorta kinda BDC.
classy turret covers:
aid for old eyeballs:
A nice option when you need slightly more height than flush mount but less than a normal 1/3 co-witness AR height, with some setback:
The good:
- the glass is very clear, the reticle is sharp and can be focused to make up for some eyeball differences.
- the 13 mounting options included in the box are nice. If you're just on an AR it's fine to just have a high mount, but for non-ARs, shotguns, and other oddballs being able to fine tune the mount without extra cost is big
- you don't need power to make it work, when zeroing or plinking at steel at the range I just leave it off and use the etched reticle.
- won't wash out in low light (was in a class with a night shoot and when people had their dots turned down to lower settings hitting a close target with 10 billion lumens of white light there would be enough light to lose the dot. I had a 1-8x with an etched reticle so when it got suddenly bright I still had something to aim with and this 1x should work the same way)
- it's got a few hash marks for ranges, so you can learn some hold-overs and have something to reference vs. just a dot
The bad:
- the battery cover on the dial starts to open when I try to dial the illumination in the 'wrong' way. the fix is to dial the other way, or remember to retighten but that's just lame. it works in both directions, so it shouldn't come apart when you use one.
- the OFF position (0) has to line up with a little arrow on the body of the optic, and it's hard to see with crappy eyes and with the lower settings and NV settings not visible in daylight you can't be sure it's off just by looking. I put a silver paint pen mark on the 0 on the dial and the body, line them up and it's off
- the thing turns off when the dial gets bumped. At one point in the class I had my rifle laying propped on a 4x4 on the ground (the staging table was full) and it got kicked a bit which made the dial move just a tiny amount. I just happened to check the illumination before I got to the line and noticed it was off 'between' settings (there is only one off, not an off in-between each setting). The second time I don't know what happened, must have been bumped with me just carrying the rifle slung all day but in the middle of a drill I noticed the reticle was dark. I'm so used to having it off in the day that it didn't really register to me that anything was amiss until I remembered after that I wanted to run it ON the whole class.
The meh:
- 1 MOA adjustments, pretty coarse but this is a 1x and I'm not a 1 MOA shooter with irons or a 1x at any distance 1 MOA would make a difference at
- no covers on the adjustments. it 'seems' like they wouldn't get bumped but I don't like it so I've taken to putting gaffers tape over them as a precaution.
- the bikini cover is chinchy
- the circle around the dot, it's cool looking when on the bench and showing off to your friends, but not really sure it's needed at speed, just some extra noise in your field of view but I just might not know any better
Overall, it's not bad for the price. PA just raised it 10%, but that's sadly not unexpected. I really, really like how it works without power so for things that get staged and left it makes total sense to have an optic that doesn't require batteries or functioning electronics to work. I need more time behind it to get proficient so I can do head-to-head drills with a red dot and see if it works just as well up close, because I know it's better at range with it's sorta kinda BDC.
classy turret covers:
aid for old eyeballs:
A nice option when you need slightly more height than flush mount but less than a normal 1/3 co-witness AR height, with some setback:
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