Useless Magnifying Glass

''It has the magnifying power of x1. In other words, things that appear in it look exactly the same as they do to the naked eye. Truly impressive.''

The magnifying glass (or similar tool) that doesn't do anything to magnify, so it just becomes a glass. A variant of a Useless Magnifying Glass is a telescope that can be used like a pair of binoculars. What's wrong with that is binoculars are used to see far-away things on Earth in detail, while a telescope is used to see things in space in detail. If the telescope is used like a long binocular, then it's completely worthless for its original purpose. Useless Magnifying Glasses are often used as icons where magnifying glasses would be but are never really used by characters who want to see small details up close.