Guide IR TD210 Thermal Monocular

I’m usually looking at the latest top-end thermal gear to see what’s happening at the leading edge of this revolutionary technology. Sometimes, however, it’s just as interesting to consider that special point at the other end of the market where low price intersects with practical capability, and this is where the TD201 monocular from Guide Infrared comes in. Despite an already-attractive MSRP of £599.95, ‘street prices’ online can be significantly lower, which is good news for those on tight budgets, i.e., precisely the people the TD210 is designed for!

Let’s take a peek

Opening the TD210’s smart black box, you find it accompanied by an ample accessory set comprising a 18650 battery, a twin battery charger, all the requisite cables, a wrist strap and a neoprene transit pouch. Also present is an alternate eye cup with a broad rubber flange in case you prefer this to the simple factory-fitted buffer ring. A printed manual is included, too. This is generally clear, despite a smattering of Chinglish, and quite comprehensive, although it doesn’t cover the operation of the complementary TargetIR app, or tell you how to change the position of the picture-in-picture (PiP) window (Tip: you need the app for this!)

The truth is that the TD210’s controls and menus are pretty intuitive, so chances are you’ll only reach for the manual when you discover that the textured rubber ring around the objective lens won’t budge and want to know how to focus the monocular. The surprising answer is that the TD210 focuses electronically. Just give the front ‘brightness’ button a long press to focus closer objects and do the same to the rear ‘magnifier’ button to focus more distant ones. This electronic system works fine once you get the hang of it, but at first, it’s all too easy to overshoot repeatedly before finally finding the best setting.

This process is made a little harder by the fact that the price-point only permits the use of a 256×192 pixel sensor (vs. the 384x288 and 640x480 units found in mid-range and high-end thermal devices), which means you never get the kind of definition that unequivocally indicates perfect focus. The up-side here is how well Guide’s image-processing smooths the sensor output onto the surprisingly-generous 1280×960 FLCOS display, and how evenly the eyepiece magnifies the display’s tiny 0.4” screen to present a large image to the user’s eye. On-screen icons are consequently sharp, but they are also unobtrusive, so they are there when you want them, but never in the way.

On the outside

Externally, the TD210 is notably handy, with dimensions (143×45×73mm) a tad smaller than the benchmark Pulsar Axion 2 XQ35 (152x50x74mm), and weighing only 30-grams more at 330-grams. With the exception of the dioptre dial (left/rear) and the USB-C port discreetly tucked away behind a rubber cover (right/front), all the controls are located centrally, making the TD210 essentially ambidextrous. The housing itself is tough polymer, with a more tactile insert in the bottom third. Environmental protection is rated IP66, rather than the more water-resistant IP67, so the odd shower is nothing to worry about, but don’t drop the TD210 in a pond or store it wet. As for the wrist strap, whilst it has evident reassurance value when viewing at height, over water or from a moving vehicle, I’d still prefer the versatility of a neck lanyard, or given the pocket-sized dimensions of the TD210, well, you can guess the rest!

Before checking out the four rubberised buttons on top, we should note the welcome presence under the front of the housing of a UNC ¼”x20 tripod socket, and the battery compartment conveniently located at the rear. The latter has a sliding catch and hinges down to open. Nice (especially in the dark) is the fact that you can insert the battery either way around. Additional 18650 cells are inexpensive, but one of my own spares wouldn’t fit, so be aware that length and diameter can vary critically a bit between makes. Run-time on a single cell was good for an outing or three and you can stretch it by selecting the auto-standby (5/10/15 minutes) or auto-power-off (15/30/60 minutes) menu options.

A further external feature to note is the red laser pointer under the objective lens. This can be activated from within the menu or by pressing and holding the brightness and magnification buttons simultaneously. What’s it for? Well, in principle, a spotter equipped with a TD210 can indicate targets to a shooter with a daylight or NV scope. Using an airgun for ratting showed this could be fun, but in practice, the range is really limited to about 30m. My only quibble is that I’d like to be able to turn the laser off without having to scroll through a choice of reticle colours first, however. (The app permits this.)

Controls

As for the control buttons, nearest the front is the power button, which sits flush with the housing and needs a firm, sustained press to activate the unit. Time to calibration is quick at four seconds. Thereafter, a quick press manually calibrates the unit (close the tethered rubber lens cover first), a longer press selects to standby, and a sustained press powers down the monocular, while an on-screen animation helpfully tracks each stage.

The remaining three buttons sit slightly proud of the housing and are identical in size, differentiated only by moulded icons showing (front-to-rear) a sun, a scene and a magnifying glass. A quick press of the ‘sun’ button lets you scroll through five brightness levels, while doing the same with the ‘scene’ button offers a choice of five colour palettes (white-hot, black-hot, red-hot, iron-hot and blue-hot). I’d like to have red or green monochrome instead of the latter two, but the essentials are there. As for the actual scene settings (natural, highlight and enhanced), they’re tucked away in the main menu, which is accessed via a long press on the ‘scene’ button.

The ‘magnifier’ button, meanwhile, scrolls between the 1.8x base magnification, a 3.6x digital boost and 1.8x with a 3.6x PiP window in the upper-left of the screen. The spec sheet says that this can be repositioned in the upper/centre or upper/right, but the manual doesn’t tell you how, which was mildly frustrating. In any case, given the small sensor, 1.8x is the way to go as, combined with the 10mm lens, it gives a useful FOV of 17.1×13.0º. For comparison, the aforementioned Axion 2 XQ35 gives just 10.7х8º at 2x. With thermal, I’ll take FOV over magnification all day long, especially in a monocular, and even more so in something like the TD210, whose sensitivity and resolution are best suited to locating quarry rather than observing its behaviour in detail.

Entering the menu lets you activate three connectivity options: Bluetooth, video-out and WiFi. The first two are of little interest, as the former is specific to the remote control supplied with Guide’s TA425 clip-on device, and the latter requires partnering with a screen equipped with an old-style coaxial video input. The WiFi does matter, however, as there’s no onboard memory, so if you want to record, it has to be via Guide’s TargetIR smartphone app. My Android phone connected immediately to the TD210, but wouldn’t run the app, so I tried a tablet, which worked. I’m glad it did because the extra functionality TargetIR provides (above and beyond recording and viewing stills and video) is welcome. In addition to full control of the direct functions, you get multiple calibration modes (manual/scene/auto), a stadiametric rangefinder, 10 brightness and contrast levels and an image-enhancement option.

In use

In the field, the first thing to say about the TD210’s performance is “No, it isn’t just as good as a £1K unit!” Basically, if you want sharp contrast and impressive detail you need to spend more. But, if you want to spot warm-blooded things in a wood or around the farmyard, and to figure out where - and, in broad terms, what - they are, the TD210 will do that. It didn’t enable me to tell a roe doe from a buck, or a muntjac from a fox or badger at 75m, or a squirrel from a rabbit at 50m, but it did let me detect their presence from a much greater distance. Plus, knowing they were there, I could set about confirming their identity with the scope or binos.

So, the TD210 is not a device through which to spend time marvelling at the thermalized world, but when used to do what makes thermal a real game-changer, i.e. making quick sweeps of fields, trees, rafters and rat runs to spot quarry at stalkable and shootable ranges, it meets the need.

You can buy with confidence too, since Guide IR has been a giant in the field for a long time now, and Thomas Jacks (UK distributor) provides quality support for the manufacturer’s 2-year warranty. In short, the Guide TD210 is a compact, well-featured, easy-to-use device with genuine field utility that’s boosted by a great app. Plus, it’s available at an unbeatable price. Overall, I reckon it’s the best entry-level thermal yet.