Previously, when choosing lenses, consumers usually prioritize brands first. The reputation of major lens manufacturers often represents quality and stability in consumers' minds. However, with the development of the consumer market, "self-pleasure consumption" and "doing thorough research" have become important traits influencing today's consumers. So customers pay more attention to the parameters of lenses. Among all the parameters of the lens, Abbe value is a very important one when you evaluate the lenses.
Abbe value is a measure of the degree to which light is dispersed or separated when passing through a lens. The dispersion occurs at any time when white light is broken into its component colors. If the Abbe value is too low, then the light dispersion will cause chromatic aberration which appears in one's vision to be like a rainbow around viewed objects especially noticed around light sources.
A characteristic of that lens is that the higher the Abbe value is, the better the peripheral optics will be; the lower the Abbe value is, the more chromatic aberration will be. In other words, a high Abbe value means low dispersion ad clearer vision, while a low Abbe value means high dispersion and more color blur. So when you choose the optical lenses, it is better to choose the lenses with higher Abbe value.
Here you can find the Abbe value for the main materials of the lenses in the market:
