The Cornea goggle does have what POC calls a cylindrical lens rather than a spherical lens, which many high-end goggles use these days, but I don’t think this is the reason for the decreased clarity. I have looked through a pair of Corneas with POC’s NXT lens, then through the spherically shaped Oakley Crowbar with a Dark Grey Polarized lens, and the the clarity of the NXT seemed much better to me than that of the Crowbar lens.
The NXT, by the way, is POC’s uber high-end lens ($100 more than the other lenses) with a photochromatic tint, a high-definition color enhancing filter, and superior lens plastics. This leads me to believe that it is the actual Smoke / Silver mirror lens—and not the design of the frame—that was responsible for the perceived decreased in clarity. I’d like to confirm this by testing the NXT lens with a pair of Corneas on snow.
The field of vision of the Corneas is decent, although I found that my Smith Phenom’s have a better overall field of vision, which was surprising since the Phenom is clearly smaller than the Cornea. The Cornea does have more material between where the foam touches the face and where the outriggers extend away from the face, however, which makes the outriggers extend 1 centimeter farther out from the foam than on the Phenom; this may be the cause of the slightly narrower field of vision. When wearing the Cornea with the Receptor helmet, the field of vision does increase slightly as the outriggers are stretched wider and pulled back, but it is still narrower than the Phenom.
In a head-to-head test of peripheral vision between the Cornea, the Smith Phenom, and the Scott Fix, the Cornea sat between the Fix and the Phenom, with the Phenom clearly wider than the other two, especially when worn with a helmet. The Phenom also has an increased vertical field of vision.
Style
One of the reasons I was originally interested in the Cornea is the style. While not for everybody, I think the sleek, frameless design looks pretty sweet with the Receptor line of helmets. As expected with a top of the line helmet / goggle combo from the same manufacturer, the top of the Cornea lens seals perfectly with the brim of the POC Receptor Backcountry helmet, with hardly a millimeter of space between the two.
At first I was a bit hesitant about the oversized lens, but they have grown on me, so much so that now my other goggles seem too small to pair well with the Receptor helmet. POC is putting out great looking goggles with a good array of color options: the Cornea comes in eight variations from pink to murdered-out black on black.
Anti-Scratch / Anti-Fog
The Cornea lenses are treated with both anti-fog and anti-scratch coating. After about 25 days of use, I would say that the durability of the lenses are on par with other high-end lenses. The only major scratch I have occurred after the goggles were knocked off a hook they were hanging on and fell from eye level onto a tile floor (good going there, Mr. Editor-in-Chief). Any lens would have scratched in that fall—treat your goggles well, people.
I was able to get the goggles to fog when I had my jacket fully zipped up with a buff on, and my breath was filtering through the bottom of the frame. But the fog dissipated as soon as I started skiing and never caused a problem when it counted.
Bottom Line
The POC Cornea is a solid goggle that looks good and performs well. It doesn’t have quite as wide a field of view compared to other goggles I’ve used, and the clarity of the Smoke / Silver mirror lens, while not distracting or noticeable while skiing, didn’t seem quite as sharp when compared head to head with some other lenses. But, in my opinion, the combination of the Cornea’s look, feel, and performance make it a solid goggle choice.