Reviews You Can Rely On

Author Profile

Benjamin Hickok

Review Editor


Ben is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys climbing, mountaineering, hunting, and fishing. He has spent more than two decades balancing work and passion, providing professional web development, software development, IoT, hardware design, and consulting services, while enjoying everything the outdoors has to offer.

When Ben isn't in the field, he enjoys building radio control vehicles, fpv drones, and tinkering on a wide range of hobby and commercial electronics projects. He combines his outdoor life experiences, with his technical skills to bring an expert perspective to GearLab. Ben is also passionate about researching products, diving into technical specifications, developing testing plans, collecting data, data analysis, and running products through the gauntlet to determine the best products and values for our readers.

Showing 1-15 of 17 by Benjamin Hickok
best binoculars

Best Binoculars of 2024

What are the best binoculars? We took 16 different models through rigorous outdoor testing to find out. We went...
adorrgon 12x42 hd

Adorrgon 12x42 HD Review

Lackluster performances across many of our test metrics leaves a lot to be desired. You'll want to look elsewhere.
swarovski el 8.5x42

Swarovski EL 8.5x42 Review

Crystal lenses and thoughtful design touches make the Swarovski EL the best binoculars you can buy. If you want the...
leica noctivid 10x42

Leica Noctivid 10x42 Review

Leica offers top-of-the-line optical quality in the Noctivid, but slightly misses the mark on a couple of design...
nikon monarch m5 8x42

Nikon Monarch M5 8x42 Review

Combing great optical quality and exceptional brightness with a mid-tier price, these binoculars are a decent option...
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