Bausch and Lomb bills the 8080 as a telephoto lens/spotting scope. It is a modified Schmidt-Cassegrain design with an 80mm main mirror, and antireflection multicoatings on the corrector plate. It comes with the necessary extension tube for telephoto use (you must order the appropriate "T" adapter for your particular brand of camera separately), a standard 1.25 inch right-angle star diagonal, and two eyepieces (a 30mm, 25x and an 18mm, 42x). The eyepieces are full sized 1.25 inch astronomical models, of reasonable quality, but with somewhat narrow fields of view. The eye relief on the 42X is a little short for use with eyeglasses, but since most scopes, especially in this price range, only come with one low power eyepiece, I still consider the higher power eyepiece a nice bonus.
Physically the 8080 is quite small. It is less than a foot long, and that includes two inches of built in "lens shade" on the front, and only 3 and half inches in diameter. With full rubber armor, it weighs just over 2 and a half pounds. It easily fits into a backpack, and can be used, with some success, cradled in the crook of your arm or balanced on a knee for the occasional tripod-less long one on a Christmas Bird Count. Focus is controlled by a knurled knob at the lower right hand side of the back plate, and is fairly quick and very precise.
Optically, the 8080 provides exceptional resolution (1.86 arc seconds, equal to that of the Elite 77mm ED), but, due to the large central obstruction, only adequate brightness and contrast. (As a telephoto it is an 800mm f/10. I have had photos taken with the 8080 published in national birding magazines, which says something about its quality as a lens, but I always have to set 200 speed film at 150-180 on the camera to get decent exposures.) At its price point, you would have to consider the standard glass model of the Kowa 60mm scope (TS 612) and the Bushnell 60mm ED Spacemaster (with a better eyepiece than comes supplied). The refractors would give you brighter images with more snap, but neither would equal the 8080's resolution. To get the resolution of the 8080 at anywhere near its price you would have to go another $100 for the Celestron S80+. If you add a high power eyepiece, the 8080 easily has more reach (up to 100x) than any refractor in its price range.
All in all, the 8080 represents a very good value, especially if you are looking for a scope that will also serve as a telephoto lens.