what is the best smart telescope under $700

I would guess that the best choice would be the ZWO SeeStar S50. I think these run about $550.00 US.

In my view the best Smart Telescope is SeeStar S50. While the new S30 has also been released, the S50 is still more powerful than S30 from an Optics perspective. The new S30 has a newer and better Camera Sensor which in my view will soon be available with newer generation of S50 as well. There are others like Dwarf and Vespera but Seestar scores over them in overall terms

If you go for a EQ Wedge and a stable Tripod for S50, the EQ mode will be usable and the whole setup will still be less than USD 700.

I personally am using S50 and am very happy with the results

My recommendation will be S50

Happy Sky Gazing !

S30 pro -585mc , S30 -662mc,S50 -462mc.

You kind of priced out some options at $700, so it’s going to limit you to Dwarf 3 or Seestars, and I’d bet a preorder on the Seestar S30 Pro is on everyone’s mind in here.

Another thought: What’s the best used price you could get for a quality smart telescope? As Seestars proliferate everywhere, they do still have small tiny lenses so physics still does play a role here. Using physics as your guide, look into a used Unistellar Equinox, Equinox 2 to get a 4.5” mirror that can get you deeper into faint objects. If astrophotography is your thing though than I’d steer you toward considering a used Vaonis or Seestar S50 or Dwarf 3 as people get bored with them and sell them used for the latest thing. Depends on your purpose, but since everyone in this thread will just say “zwo seestar” wanted to provide some alternative lines of thought to contribute something unique.

Also, you will probably get this feedback too that you could also just get a good telescope then make it smarter through an addon control unit like ASIair / Stellavita, etc., which lets you set the quality and have modular components you can put on different rigs down the line.

Matteo Lesinigo · Jan 3, 2026, 07:53 PM

The Unistellar are not really great for imaging. They exhibit very elongated stars at the edge of the fields and don’t allow you to set any shooting parameter. They are very good for outreach (especially the ones with the fake eyepiece) but I would not recommend them to take images. At the moment the Dwarf and the SeeStar are the ones with the better price / performance ratio. Vaonis scopes have a better build quality but not such a big advantage in image quality (for sure I would avoid the Pro as the smaller pixels require a very long time to achieve an acceptable signal to noise ratio, the V2 is instead quite good). The Origin is great from an optical design and light gathering possibilities but software wise is still very messy and light years behind the others. An asiair based setup is a great alternative for easy to use and flexibility, stellavita is still behind in terms of reliability unfortunately.

I would disagree with you about imaging as we have a Unistellar eVscope group here on Astrobin that speaks for itself - https://www.astrobin.com/groups/637/unistellar-evscope-imagers/ - But my point is physics is important, and they are simply more than a Seestar, with a 114mm mirror. What you do with that then has some strengths / weaknesses - great for deep sky for example, galaxy clusters, planetary nebulas, galaxies, etc. People’s definition of “astrophotography” or imaging is a good distinction to keep in mind too.

I agree eVscopes are great outreach, but also I’d refer to eVscopes as data collectors, citizen science data tools, and electronically assisted astronomy (EAA) tools due to ability to dig far deeper than a small refractor and show you galaxy clusters and faint comets and let you keep observing without processing need. Imaging is possible, but maybe we could clarify it as a strength that it does EAA well, and although you can now download fits files, it is a bit more complicated for straight up classic astrophotography without knowing what you’re getting into.

The Origin will never get under 700 dollars, remember that was the point of the thread, so I suggested look for first generation premier smart telescopes used, as Vaonis and Unistellar scopes are hitting that threshold now as people dump them for new Seestars.

I agree with you on ASIair at least, it’s what everyone uses to convert a scope but even there things are catching up now as we see copies of copies coming to the market so I can’t keep up with them. If our OP doesn’t have a ZWO cam though, I’d go for something like NINA on a Beelink mini computer, or something similar to Stellavita (there are others, I think SBVONY makes one now even).