I have had the chance to play around with several of the SP line models...notably the 10x43s, 8x43s and the 10x50s. Excellent binoculars for the price...right in line with what those birding articles you mentioned have suggested. In fact, I would give them more credit than that. Birders do place some very stringent demands on binoculars....more so in terms of image quality in most cases.

Matt/PA, on the moderators on here, owns the 8x43 SPs and cannot say enough about them. Do a search for them and you will see what I mean.

I have a pair of the XPs, the 8x33s and I love them. They are about 9/10ths as bright as some of the 8x42s I have seen on the market and much more compact. Speaking of which, they measure approximately 4.25 inches long and about the same width. If you are familar with binocular styles in general then you may realize that size is not much bigger than the classic compacts that all of us owned at one point or another. The big difference though is in the image quality and overall durability.

The Pentax XPs, SPs and HR IIs are all waterproof, fogproof, nitrogen filled with full multicoated optics and phase coated roof prisms. The difference between the models is reflected in terms of the overall sizes and internal designs. The XPs are the smallest overall with the HR IIs being the largest. The SPs use the most glass (aspheric lens) internally to achieve a slightly clearer picture across the entire image.

I would recommend any of them. Most birding authorities rate the Pentax SPs at very close to the same quality level as Swarovski, Leica and the upper end Zeiss. That says quite a bit to me.

Good luck with your purchase and let us know what you decide on.