Hi Leon,
I've used my father's
Vanguard VEO 2 GO 235ABM and it's a very nice tripod (from an amateur's perspective anyway!). Weighs 1.2kg total, aluminium construction, approx 30cm folded up and reaches about 140cm fully extended. I like the design of the ball head it comes with, the friction knobs are rubber coated and it has your typical quick release plate up top. The quick release plate also has a rubberised knob and it sits nice and tight when clamped down with little play. The legs fold out and have a robust clicky locking mechanism with 3 set angles to choose from if I recall correctly, and there's not much play or wobble once they're set. Also has that little hook down the bottom of the central pole if you want to weigh it down a bit.
Best features in my opinion are the clicky leg locks and rubberised twist locks for the leg extensions. I've owned a couple cheap tripods and those latch style leg locks are a major pain... These ones are nice and solid. Again, once it's set, it's set.
My one and only niggle with this tripod is that due to it's compact size and placement of friction knobs, it only folds up neatly in one specific configuration. I spend a good 5 minutes during pack up rotating the head and spinning the ball mount, guessing whether or not the friction knobs and quick release plate will be in the right place so as to avoid colliding with the legs when they're folded up. I'm sure with extended use this problem goes away but it's a tiny bother for me nonetheless!
All in all a great tripod, definitely gonna 'borrow' it for an extended period of time to look at the sky when I get a new pair of binos to mount on it.
