Advice for a laser rookie

[Viggen]

Greetings all,
Been reading the forums here for a couple of days now, and decided to join up, as the most useful unbiased advice seems to be here.

I've had a couple of those cheap red keychain type lasers, and have had fun with them.  But recently a friend of mine showed me his "greenie".  Even though it was only 1mW, I was amazed as I had never seen any other colour than red, so I had to get one.

I stumbled into Wicked Lasers website, and ordered the 5mW CORE on 31st Jan, and it arrived this morning 4th Feb.
Yes, yes I know that WL arnt the best around, but I only found that out after the order was made and I found these forums.  But I am happy with the speed of the delivery and the quality of the laser etc.

After reading more here I realise how much fun can be had with the more powerful lasers, and from what I've seen so far many here recommend Novalasers.  So I find myself wanting more!!!

So the advice I need is this... I'm looking to spend around $200.  For this I can get the X100 which looks good.  But whats the difference between the X-Series and the Alpha series?? for around the same price as the X100 ($209) the Alphas are $199 for A65, $239 for A85 etc... why are the Alpha more expensive for less power? are they worth it over the X-Series where I can get more power for my money?  :-/

Any help on this will be appreciated  

 

[cbrian4]

The alpha has a lense shutter to keep dust out and it also has a key and safety dongle The key is removable however the dongle is not (the dongle looks like a headphone jack) there is also a 3 second delay between the time you push the button to when it fires the laser beam. Oh and it uses AA instead of AAA for longer battery life. And it has a 200 second duty cycle instead of the 100 seconds with the x series.
Hope this helps

 

[Viggen]

Thanks for the info, that helps clear up the differences.
Now the next question I have is about the power of the lasers.  Im assuming the beam quality itself on the X-Series is the same or similar as an Alpha of the same mW.  So is there much difference between the 100mW and the 75mW which could save me at least $60 (for X-Series) and if so then maybe I should save up a bit more and go for the 125mW?... so many decisions lol.

Thanks again.

 

[Razako]

you should save up and get the 125. If you don't you will always be wishing for a bit more power.