After previously owning the Startravel 150 and being very pleased with how it performed, I jumped on the chance to own the Evostar version.
Being F8 it is quite a lot bigger than the F5 Startravel. However it is manageable and not too much of a problem getting on to the HEQ5.
I first tried on the EQ5 but found the scope took too long to settle. Which made it things a little frustrating. The Skywatcher Autofocuser may have helped. On the HEQ5 it is much better. I would say that a NEQ6 is probably the best mount for the Evostar 150 if you want a sturdy setup.
Optically the Evostar is a revelation. You would have to be really picky about CA (Chromatic Abberation) to find this telescope a problem. There is zero CA on the majority of objects (star clusters, double stars, galaxies, anything with low contrast). It's only on the brightest stars (Vega, Sirius etc) that a blue haze around the star appears. On the moon it is not objectionable at all. Same with Saturn. Only Jupiter is there another smearing of blue around the planet. However the details on Jupiter are superb. Not just the cloud belts but detail within the cloud belts (festoons, swirls). For detail my Celestron C6 and Skywatcher ED100 could not show the same details. Yes they were colour free but the view in the Evostar was better.
I have swapped out the original rack and pinion focuser with the Astro Essentials Dual Speed Crayford. Hugely recommend doing this. It's another expense of £159 on top of the telescope price but it replaces the one weak part in the telescope.

I had been wanting to buy a telescope for years, and lockdown gave me the impetus to finally do something about it. Did a bit of research online and contacted the folks at FLO to discuss suitable options. I'm not that tall, so standing on steps on dark cold nights to look down the eyepiece of a mirror scope wasn't that appealing, so a refractor it was. Also I wanted to get the experience of seeing objects directly with my eyes to learn my way around the sky (primarily the planets and moving onto other obejects), with a view to maybe moving on to astrophotography in the future. After a helpful online chat with FLO I settled on an Evostar 150 coupled with an EQ5 deluxe mount. I had to wait a while for delivery due to the backlog on orders at the factory in China due to COVID-19 shutdown and restrictions, but it was worth it, and the set up arrived before the expected delivery date from FLO. I have to say here that FLO were a pleasure to deal with and the scope and mount arrived with lashings of packaging to keep them safe on their journey.

This scope is BIG (almost 1.5 m long), but not heavy or unwieldly, and is easy enough to mount and balance on the EQ5. My very first use gave me spectacular views of Jupiter and its moons, Saturn, Mars, Andromeda and was able to make out clear bandings and rings on the gas giants. As well as detailed visualisation of features on the moon, I was able to find and see both uranus and Neptune. All on my first night! This scope is everything I've been after. The achromatic glass allows more than enough aligned quality phtons to get to my eyeball to see details, but now have a Baader Fringe killer filter on the way to help enhace the contrast and reduce finging. I can't wait for it to arrive.

I have nothing put praise for FLO and this scope and thoroughly them to others.

I used this telescope on an HEQ5 mount with Celestron X-Cel LX eyepieces and a Teleview 2x Barlow.

Most opinions on a telescope of these specifications tend to grumble about chromatic aberration and its rather large size. Although this telescope is large, a good motorized mount like the HEQ5 made it easy to use. Chromatic aberration was present on bright objects such as Vega, however, it was completely absent on dimmer objects. I really didn't find CA an issue when using this telescope.

I have not had the chance to view planets or the moon but I did have a lot of fun observing some DSOs. I observe from a very light polluted site (a sodium street light casts a shadow of me on the ground), but I was able to get some of the best views of open clusters that I have personally seen. The rich orange colour of Albireo contrasted with the blue of its partner and I got great views of Ring and Dumbbell planetary nebulas. I'm really looking forward to using this scope in the years ahead.

It has to be said that a huge refractor looks really cool too.

I owned the older, blue-tubed version with collimatable lens cell and rack and pinion focuser. I imagine my comments will equally apply the latest version. Regarding the differences, in my experience, refractors keep collimation very well, so the lack of collimation shouldn't be a problem, and a crayford focuser in the latest version is very welcome addition indeed. The rack and pinion focuser on my one left something to be desired...

Optically, I found this a fantastic instrument which controls CA well. Of course, being achromatic, there is some blue fringing if you push the magnification on high-contrast objects. It does not take too much from the view, and can be filtered out if you feel the need.

One thing to be very aware of before you buy is that it is a very substantial telescope - long, heavy and cumbersome. It will certainly need a heavy duty mount - an EQ5 very minimum, and a tall tripod.