This little guy is perfect. I have been on the market for an engagement ring and have been looking at diamonds for almost a month now. I've decided to be very picky about such an important investment and have looked at a huge amount of diamonds. At first I was using my dads loupe, which was good quality and 30x power. I thought it was a good thing that his luope was more powerful than the 10x loupes that the jewelers were using, but I found myself borrowing their 10x loupes and never even touching my dads. At first I thought it was because they had $80 loupes (I asked one of the guys what he paid for his), but my dad suggested that maybe it was because ours was too strong, since we were able to hold the loupe and diamond much closer to our eye which made the inclusions more visible (you really don't need all that much power to see the inclusions as they are not all that small). After he suggested that, I decided to go on a hunt for a loupe of my own - and that's what leads me to this particular one. I took it out for its first trial run yesterday. After two hours of looking at diamonds, I can honestly say that I can't tell the difference between what I remember from the loupes I was borrowing and this one. Sure they were probably a bit sturdier, but how much stronger do they need to be? I can tell this thing is going to last just fine, and I am very very happy with this $3+ investment. In fact, I just came on to buy another for my dad because he was so impressed with it. An overall very solid buy, especially if you plan on using it for diamonds.