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The Razor HD is Vortex's highest quality and most expensive series of spotting scopes, so it's no surprise that the manufacturer has incorporated their best technologies. The HD symbol in the name signifies the use of low-dispersion glass elements and high-refractive-index glass lenses. In its specifications, Vortex declares apochromatic correction, meaning that chromatic aberration should be reduced to an absolute minimum.

The prisms are arranged in a roof system and have been implemented with dielectric and phase coatings. This is intended to significantly limit light loss and ensure high light transmission throughout the entire instrument.

All optical elements are covered with high-quality, multilayer XR Plus antireflection coatings. Indeed, when looking at the scope's objective lens, we observe numerous reflections from the air-to-glass surfaces, which are tinted greenish-blue-yellow with a noticeable dominance of green.

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The Razor HD 13-39x56 shows no noticeable problems with mechanical vignetting or axial alignment of its components. As a result, the appearance and shape of the exit pupils are exemplary, regardless of the magnification used.

However, the internal reflections are somewhat apparent. Noticeable artifacts are visible on the left and right sides of the exit pupil, which in specific conditions might start to interfere with observations.

When it comes to correcting basic optical aberrations, the Razor HD performs really well. The image color is neutral, with no significant color casts visible. Sharpness and resolution in the center of the field are very good, irrespective of the magnification. As for the edge of the field, at 13x and 25x magnification, sharpness is maintained practically all the way to the diaphragm, which cuts off beautifully and sharply from the background. It's slightly worse at maximum magnification, where a slight blur is visible in the last 10-15% of the field near the very edge.

Chromatic aberration in the center is low. There's a slightly higher chance of spotting it at 13x and 39x magnification, while we recorded its lowest level in the middle of the magnification range. The edge of the field, however, leaves much to be desired in this regard. Chromatic aberration there is clearly greater than average, and again, it's worst at the extremes of the magnification range and best in the middle. Unfortunately, the size-constrained variable eyepiece must have some weak points, and correcting chromatic aberration at the edge of the frame is precisely the compromise the Razor's optical designers opted for.

Regarding distortion, it increases slightly with magnification. At 13x, it's practically imperceptible; at 25x, a minimal "pincushion" appears, becoming slightly more pronounced at maximum magnification. However, in all cases, we can only speak of a minor level of this aberration at most.

Tests under a noght sky revealed further advantages of the tested Razor. It has no significant issues with astigmatism. We rate its performance in this category at 7 out of 10 points when using 13x magnification and an impressive 8 out of 10 points when switching to 25x. Only at maximum magnification does astigmatism slightly increase, dropping the rating to 6-6.5 points here. Even better results were seen in the case of coma. At every magnification, even at the very edge of the field of view, it remains at the boundary between very small and small values. Simultaneously, the comatic deformation of point star images appears very late, at a distance of 85% of the field of view radius for lower magnifications and as much as 90% for maximum magnification. These are truly excellent results.