*originally posted to rkmccaulley.livejournal.com*
I’ve got a pair of glasses on my face. They’re not my usual 10X (left eye only) magnifiers for playing DS games. They’re not my wire-frame sunglasses. They’re a pair of Gunnar Optiks’ PIPELINE’s from their (indoor) ATTACHE collection.
You may be wondering what exactly they are. I wondered the exact same thing last week, and when I found the answer, I decided to pick up a pair for myself and see how they worked for me.
Here are the bullet-points that I found on evilcontrollers.com (you can find them in accessories). These are the bullet-points that got me interested.
- Provides CONTRAST for greater visual accuracy & efficiency.
- Enhances DETAIL for sharper, clearer vision.
- Increases visual ENDURANCE.
- Decreases FATIGUE and dry eyes.
- Reduces GLARE and visual noise.
My vision is around 20/400. I’m not much of a believer in miracles. For these glasses to do some of the things for me that they claim to be able to do would be just that, a miracle.
To sum up the first 2 bullet-points (CONTRAST and DETAIL), these glasses make things "pop". The slight bit of yellow tint that the lenses possess makes the DETAIL that’s already in what you’re looking seem like there’s a bit of CONTRAST which makes the DETAIL a bit more noticeable than it would be if you were looking at it with your naked eyes. At least that’s how my less-than stellar vision interprets it. I’d venture to say that if these glasses do this for someone like me who has a slight bit of color blindness going on, that someone with 20/20 vision and nothing weird going on might see more benefit, but that’s just a guess.
The third and fourth bullet-point were proven true during my 8 hour marathon playthrough of the Supreme Commander 2 demo (that’s right, the demo is that big… or I’m just not that good). After a couple hours without the Gunnars, I’d have to step away from the TV and go do something else to give my eyes a break. With the Gunnars, nothing of the sort took place. I don’t remember taking off the glasses to rub my eyes. I don’t remember tilting my head back, shutting my eyes, and thinking "time to call it quits" before leaning forward to shut off my XBOX 360. When it came time to take off the glasses, put down the controller and call it quits, I could definitely tell that I had been playing video games for a while, but my eyes were nowhere near as tired as they would have been if I hadn’t had them on.
Sticking with the fourth bullet-point, by the logic given in the entire description of what Gunnar Optiks’ indoor series does, any glass type item can keep your eyes from drying out. So, if that’s the objective, I’d suggest a more cost effective route than Gunnar Optiks’ Digital Performance Eyewear.
I believe the fifth bullet-point is where these glasses really shine – glare reduction. Usually, I can’t stand looking at the word processor while I type away because I just hate looking at an electric white canvas. That leads me to hardly ever finishing writing anything I set out to write. These glasses dull the blaring white to the point where, if it hadn’t been for stepping away for dinner, I probably would have had this finished a while ago. Very nice. We can thank the yellow tint for this, too, I’m sure.
I highly recommend everyone that reads this get themselves a pair of Gunnar Optiks Digital Performance Eyewear. That suggestion does come with a few more suggestions, though. If you’re not swayed to get a pair by my review, go to YouTube and find yourself a review or 2 to watch. If even that's not enough for you, find a local retailer (you can find local retailers through their website gunnars.com), go in, tell them Rob sent you (that's completely optional, but what could it hurt if you did?) and check them out for yourself.
If my review has made you strongly consider purchasing a pair for yourself, do yourself a favor and shop around. With prices that range between $79 and $189, it’s well worth your while to do some window shopping…
Actually, here’s my experience, maybe it’ll help you some. After I made the decision to get myself a pair to check out, I checked all of the retailers listed on the Gunnar website. Nobody had any of the frame styles that I was willing to part with over $100 to have, so I started looking for the lesser of a number of evils, and found them. All total, I paid less than $65 for them. Now that I’ve had them in my possession for 4 days, I’ve decided that since I’ve made up my mind about them, I want to get one of the pairs I was originally after – a pair with a bit larger lenses because I sit really close to my computer monitor, and as such, the PIPELINE’s don’t offer large enough lenses to keep my peripheral vision in check, so I see about 85% of my monitor with the Gunnars and !5% with my naked eyes. It’s more of an annoyance versus comfort thing than anything.
That should tide over the masses, but if it doesn’t, feel free to ask me whatever you might want to know.
Thanks for reading, and as always, this review has been brought to you by the good people at ROB.
Before I call this done, and do the spellcheck>copy>paste>post thing. Thank you evilcontrollers.com, ablegamers.com, and gunnars.com for the roles each of your websites played in my finding out about these glasses.
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