Review: Tifosi Sunglasses Proven to Be Best Driving Glasses Under $100

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a glasses snob. I don’t leave the house in daylight hours without sunglasses on my face. I won’t drive without glasses, either on the road or on the track, and several of my hobbies require glasses as well. I’ve been wearing high-performance glasses since grade school, and I’ve owned most of the big hitting brands. I’m not unaccustomed to spending hundreds of dollars on a pair, but I’m also hypercritical of quality. Tifosi, a brand known for value-oriented sunglasses, offered to send out a few pairs for review, so I jumped at the chance. I decided to not only give them a shot, wearing them for various activities, but also to put them through some bench testing to see if I could find if any corners were cut to deliver sunglasses at a fraction of what other brands charge.

The Bottom Line

Tifosi offers glasses for all different tastes and use cases. From basic aviators to sport-specific wraparounds, they have something for everyone short of maybe Prue Leith. Prices start at $35.00, and nothing is over $99.99, with most polarized glasses available around 60 bucks. The lenses block UV light and perform as well as the more expensive brands. The frames are comfortable, durable and don’t feel like “affordable alternatives.” 

Does Tifosi Make Good Sunglasses?

Tifosi uses polycarbonate for its lenses, and I am comparing them to other manufacturers’ plastic lenses. I’ve had Maui Jim, Serengeti, and Ray-Bans in the past with glass lenses. While glass offers great optics, I will take the impact and shatter resistance of plastic for the slight difference in clarity. The science is inconclusive on the extra risk with glass lenses and airbags, but I feel better with plastic directly in front of my eyeballs. 

The standard for plastic sport lenses is Oakley. This will cause arguments, but Oakley pioneered the science of curved lenses, still holds several patents, and even after Jim Jannard left, the originator is still innovating. I have a set of brand new, untinted Oakley lenses as my control for testing.

Ask an optometrist the most important attribute for sunglasses, they will likely tell you UV protection—the ones I talked to did. Tifosi claims 100% UV protection. The quick and dirty test for this is using a UV flashlight, often found in the tool kits of leak finders, CSIs, and scorpion hunters. Use a specially designed UV test card, which you likely have in your wallet, and then try filtering the light with the sunglasses. I tested all the lenses, and they all filter UV. Note: most flashlights are only UV-B, and UV-A is the more harmful, but we’ll trust they are catching both.

Next, all but one pair of the glasses Tifosi sent is labeled as polarized. Think of Polarization as louvers on a molecular level. A polarized lens allows vertically oriented light to pass through, while horizontally oriented light, like glare off the road, your hood, water, etc., is blocked. Your computer monitor is likely polarized; hold your glasses up to it, now turn 90°. MAGIC! All the Tifosi glasses, besides the Shwae(the aviators), are labeled as polarized, and all passed.

Now for the freaking lasers, but no sharks. Oakley apparently invented this test to demonstrate its XYZ Optics technology. It uses a head-like fixture that holds a pair of glasses and has lasers mounted where you normally find eyes. The lasers are fixed on a single target. Glasses are put on the fixture, and the lasers are checked for accuracy on the target. Oakley will demonstrate how other curved lenses normally bend the lasers. I did the same test with just one laser.

Shooting the laser through the approximate position of a pupil, showed no movement with the Tifosi lenses. However, if you start moving the lens around, you can steer the laser pretty easily. The more curvature and the greater sweep of the lens, the more pronounced the effect seems to be. I was able to duplicate this with the Oakly lens as well. The moral of this story is to make sure you are buying glasses that fit and that your eyes line up in the spot the designer intended. Our brains are pretty good at compensating for a little bit of misalignment here and there, but it will cause extra fatigue.

Lastly, I used an Air Force clear optical path target for qualitative resolution testing. I know that sounds awesome, right? It’s not as technical as that might indicate. Basically, I wanted something that would allow me to shoot photos through the lenses to see if the black and white bars started to merge together or lose “crispness.” I used a Canon DSLR with car-journo standard issue, 70-200 lens, tripod mounted in full manual mode. This was done with the target lit with a spotlight and no other light in the room. The camera was dialed in with no filter on the lens, everything locked, and then photos were shot holding the glasses in front of the lens. I resized them but did zero editing before publishing. This should give you an idea of the clarity, color, and tint of the different lenses.

For completely qualitative purposes, I just like, wore them around, man. Cycling, dog walking, grilling in the backyard, chilling on the patio of the coffee shop, I even tried them out with a few of my helmets—open and closed face. I did not sit at the coffee shop with my full-face helmet, and now I kind of regret it. The Shwae is the only design I didn’t find comfortable. I have a larger than average head, a serious melon of a cranium. That design is just too small and doesn’t stretch enough.

The other glasses, the Swank XL and Salto are both very comfortable for me and the fit reminds me of an Oakley Holbrook or even a Frogskin, but the Tifosi feel lighter(they are, but only by a couple of grams compared to my old Holbrooks). The Sanctum is a near-perfect fit in my closed-face HJC Si-12 helmet, but fit horribly in my UVEX open-face helmet. Both the Swank and Salto fit great with the UVEX. 

The Verdict

The most expensive pair of Tifosis I tested was the Kilo, which are $79.95 and include a case and three sets of interchangeable lenses. A comparable pair of interchangeable polarized Oakley glasses like Flak 2.0s will set you back about $250, and that’s with one set of lenses. The Swank XL, Sanctum and Saltos with polarized lenses retail for $59.95, and the Shwae with non-polarized lens is $35.00. So these are very reasonably priced.

The frames have a quality feel to them, at least 90% of what you get from the bigger brands. The plastic frames have screw-pinned hinges with a cam-shaped mechanism that holds the arms in the open position and makes a satisfying thunk when folded out. The Shwae’s metal frames just use friction to damp the movement, and it’s the easiest way to determine these aren’t Randolphs or even Ray-Bans. I’m tempted to dab a little damping lubricant in there to see what it does.

If I repeatedly switch back and forth between the Tifosi and Oakley glasses, I can see slight differences in lens quality, or it may be my eyes just adjusting to different optical centers. The Lens testing didn’t show much difference between the two. After a few minutes of wearing any of the Tifosi glasses, I don’t feel like I’m looking through a budget lens. Real optic aficionados will want to stick to their glass lenses, and I totally get, and support anyone getting nerdy about their passion. For most people, Tifosi glasses are going to be a great choice for driving, cycling, or just walking down the street. At these prices, you can get a few pairs for different occasions and still spend less than some of the top brands. 

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