I would say that they are very different animals.
Both very well made binoculars, with a feeling of endless quality the moment you hold them in their hands. The Habicht has a certain timeless sense of craftmanship, it oozes charm, while the FL feels like a hi-tech well-thought F1 car: it is plastic, but don’t let that fool you.
For my medium sized hands both feel great. Their weight is almost the same, but they feel very different. The Habicht creates a sense of “pleasure”, so to speak. The same feeling you get when you use a quality knife or a classic fountain pen. The FL feels more like a technical tool to get a precision work done in the most efficient way; maybe not the cutest, but with the beauty of engineering (and this can also give the pleasure of efficiency, so to speak).
The view is very good in both, but could not be more different. The approach to excellent view is just galaxies away, as you probably know.
The Habicht is so sharp that it makes you feel you have superpowers in your eyesight; in my case, it made me feel I was watching some oneiric images from dreams that looked more real than reality itself (if you know what I mean): it is that sharp and bright. However, that otherworldly acuity comes at a price: the field is wide but the sweet spot is not the widest, in difficult (or not so difficult) light situations it suffers from glare, which can make it a bit of a pain (especially for birdwatching), and the focus can be pretty stiff, which can make you miss some fast flying birds. Then (on a personal note) the eyecups on the Habicht were just too small for my eye sockets. I wrote Swarovski and they sent me the green ones from the GA armoured version (free of charge!). That made a difference and improved things, but still I found it to be a “difficult” binocular for birding intensively for many hours.
The FL (to my eyes) is not as sharp as the Habicht and also lacks the 3D effect you get from porros, so the image is both less sharp and flatter, which renders it a bit “duller”; well, don’t get me wrong, we’re talking about an image as dull as a +1500 € image can be
So, thew view through the FL is by all means very good, but just doesn’t have that spark/pop you find on the Habicht. On the other hand: the focus on the FL is great, as is the view in general terms, all the accesorires, the extremely comfortable eyecups (I’ve read people complaining about the ease of view, but for me the 8x32 FL are just perfect, and I tend to be quite anal about eye positioning).
My experience with both Zeiss and Swarovski customer service has been stellar (I’ve sent them a number of binoculars and eyepieces and always got a stunning response; usually free of charge). So I think you would be covered there.
So, my conclusion: say you have other binocular as your main binocular and you want something for casual use (like enjoying a landscape or some light birdwatching), the Habicht can really shine. Simply put: it provides pleasure, it is as simple as that, they are a joy… but not if you want to use them intensively for hours and hours birdwatching. The FL are just stunning nearly perfect in every way, hard to fault in any respect, but the view is not as sharp or “pleasurable”, for me they lack that last “wow” to justify the price (I have had 2 units… tried to love it, but sold both). Yesterday I was reading a review of the Nikon EDG by Tobias Mennle and just Ioved it when he said that those binoculars were perfect for “colour maniacs”. Something similar could be said about the Habicht, perfect for sharpness (on axis!) and brightness maniacs. I sold my Habicht, but if I had endless resources I would have one 8x30 Habicht in my wardrobe just for the sheer pleasure of using them once in a while; however, I just find them unsuitable (for my taste and preference) as a birding-dedicated binocular. The FL can really shine there (well, they should, because they around twice the price!), it is a wonder of efficiency (small, light, bright), really a top-notch device.
I hope this helps.
