Review: Marui PRO-Goggle Full Face Version with Fan

Fallschirmjager

Well i finally decided to plonk down the cash and see for myself. For a long time i searched for a full review of these with little success. I had some concerns about these, not the TM part but the information that is available. For instance, if you purchase these as i did from ehobbyasia, they state on the info sheet about them some slightly peculiar sizing issues or at least ones that concerned me. The size they were talking about was 54 cm and i could not find anywhere info about the accuracy of this. I decided enough was enough. After all i had been at ramming speed at work for months, it cost 75 dollars and i had 75 dollars so lets go.

So what did i need?
Over the last few years i have bought guarder fog proof goggles, G&P fog proof goggles, anti fog spray, anti fog paste, used spit, used wax, used washing up liquid, bought cheaper goggles, bought the double glazing goggles, you name it -- i tried it, overall i am roughly at the gdp of karukaistan and counting on goggles alone. Did they work, in a word...no. Well to be fair they all stopped fogging but never for a complete game. Usual fan assisted googles are a small fortune (less then the gpd of karukistan) but i always balked at spending it (lesson for ye beginners there). Along come TM with their fan assisted ones. Bingo, finally a fan assisted goggles that are cheaper.

What are they like?
well i bought the ranger green version. That was mistake number one, well for me at least. The ranger green is like, well you guessed it, green. They show it with a computer generated character in acu. This isnt acu or the ranger colour and i know because, well, i just do but its close enough and to be fair not bad for plastics i guess. It will go with multicam also so it is a good enough colour. These do, by the way come in coyote (which probably isnt coyote but sort of like it,okay i am making that up) and black which you cant really get wrong. Anways it comes in a very impressive box (for ye box pervs out there) and as usual with TM, 2 pages of instructions, written in japanese. That still bugs me no end to be honest, i mean how long would it take TM to translate it, 10 minutes--15 at the most, i mean for the love of Christ, it is the 21 century and we have ships and planes, space missions to mars, they just sent a satellite around the moon, but no, lets not translate...for the record TM... there is a world outside Japan, scary thought for you there i know. Well you wont need a science degree to work this out, i mean we are talking goggles here but the one area you need help in is its biggest flaw in this design and that is getting the batteries in. Actually i did have to check the instructions because i could not believe the design was so crap. Of course it could be the japanese instructions or it could be me, but it seems you have to do the following. You reach inside the goggles to the top and there are 4 tiny 1.5mm plastic tabs. you somehow as yet undetermined while holding the goggles with one hand press these in (2 clips per side) and with your other 2 hands pull the top to expose the battery compartments. Unless you are doc oc from spiderman or some genetic freak, i cant see how this can be done easily. of course this, as i said could be just me and i am missing something obvious. Hopefully someone has spotted a better way or perhaps the right way. Also the plastic is flexible and i really cant see these tabs holding the battery compartments in place in the long term. Trust me, duct tape will be the standard for these googles after 6 months use. So anyways, on we go. The goggles will fit anyone, i have no clue what that 54cm thing is about. the strap has a buckle at the back which i am sure will dig into the back of your head in a whole day game. The straps are expandable though, so it would stretch for a helmet if needed. the front face fixing is a good fit, it is sealed by that hard black spongy but firm material, sorry i have no idea what its called but when you see it you will go, ah yes THAT black firm spongy stuff. They do appear to sit a bit heavily on the bridge of your nose, so its have the weight on your nose or have the buckle digging into your head...its your choice. They also supply a cleaning cloth, that is the same size as normal glasses so wont be much use and 2 triangles of sticky sponge for the face guard. You can stick these on if you like. The face guard can be removed which is a good thing so for those big wide open games remove it, for the cqb you can put it back on. Although i have not done this yet, it does appear to use the same truly ingeniously crap clip concept used in the battery department, so i would recommend leave it or off, the less fiddling about with these clips the better. It takes 2 AAA batteries.

The goggles themselves are rated to 1.6J and knowing TM i would not be surprised if it could take a greater hit. The perspex is also uv coated which i guess is a good thing and you have about 160 degrees of vision with the goggles at a guess. There is some distortion when looking around to the extremes using your eyes, which is not great to be honest. They are a little bulky but not too bad considering whats going on here with fans and batteries.

The fan
The goggles have a rectangle shaped on/off toggle switch on the right and a low/high round button on the left. Both of these are flush with the goggles and this is a problem. I truly think the low/high setting would be mighty tricky to set with gloves. When i switched it on, i had one of those oh crap moments. no sound at all. when i depressed the high setting i could clearly hear the fan go into overdrive. It sounded like a really loud laptop fan and is very loud when wearing it. There a a lot of air extracted via the top of the goggles, you can feel it. I do think a helmet blocking this will reduce its effectiveness however. I set it low again...nothing. The thought of returning this to ehobby loomed large. i decided to listen with my ear depressed to the fan. This fan on low is incredibly quiet, so quiet you would be hard pressed to hear it at all. no one else will hear it, either. So how does it really work. Well lets be honest this is why we are here. I fogged the googles for 15 minutes and i dont know what anti fog mixture they have but it pretty damn impressive but finally i managed to fog them up with moisture. I had blurred vision with a lot of moisture that causes you to do the airsoft head night clubbing action to get the 1mm square of unfogged goggle. You have spent hundreds on a aeg, hundreds on your kit, you are in game and then you begin that head angling motion to see something...anything and lets be honest makes you look like you are about to 'go postal'. Okay so you now know how fogged it was. It took 1.5 minutes on high to disperse this almost completely. Keep in mind i was not continually fogging it up as you would do in game. That is test number 1. I will try test 2 tomorrow outside. The good news is the fan works, how well it works on low i dont know yet but i would suspect it will keep the goggles clear(ish) and then you go on the high setting to demist when you do the 100m dodge the bb sprint.

So is it good value for 75 dollars + shipping? I think because there is really no one else in the price range it is, but thats due to the lack of competition. Its a good product except for those moronic plastic clips. Whoever designed that needs (in my best toff accect) 'a right good horse whipping'.

The final piece of good news is that the perspex is replaceable although i have not seen them on sale yet.

so marks out of 10

fan goggle part 8/10 (will test tomorrow)
power on/high/low setting buttons 4/10 (not practical at all IMHO)
noise level :8/10
moronic covers for batteries :2/10
long term lifespan (if you like duct tape for the battery part : 8/10
long term lifespan (if you DONT like duct tape for the battery part : 5/10