Customer Reviews

Celestron 44342 Round LCD Digital Microscope (Black)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I picked this up with very low expectations, and have been completely wrong. Don't expect a lab type of experience, but this is really cool. My HS age AP student son has much better ability to focus finely than I do (the focus is touchy). You can get some amazing views. My wife is a Elementary School Teacher, and she already is planning a science segment around this scope.

When you add in the ability to take photos, really opens up the potential for fun and homework.

I picked this up on a Lightning deal, and received a great value. I picked up some premade slides, and they really let you have fun immediately.

Set your expectations correctly, and this is really cool.

I bought this as a lightening deal special, with no ratings and no idea what to expect. My son will be going into the 7th grade and I thought this would at least be a entertaining toy...but I have to be honest, I am totally delighted with this product! Its alot more than a toy, it took him a few minutes to get the hang of it, because you have quite a few items to adust. You can adjust how close or far away it is on the face of the monitor, and the brightness by dialing the side knob and as the photo shows on Amazon, there is also a slider button on the bottom right side to change the focus.

It comes with 5 fixed slides and our favorite is the fly leg! When he first put it in the microscope, it looked like a long black piece of nothing. After he figured out how to play with the adjustments we saw the leg in extreeme detail and it was so cool! (A bit gross, but totally cool at the same time)! The digital microscope has built in memory that allows you to take and save digital photos as well as the capacity to add a SD card to add pictures or short videos onto.

This is a wonderful beginner microscope, the best I have seen so far and my middle schooler loves it! When he gets into high school I will buy him a nicer quality microscope from this same company without a second thought. I would have bought a better one to begin with, but never having bought from this company and having no prior reviews for this microscope I was afraid to, but now I am looking forward to purchasing another one!

Sounded like a fun "toy". Arrived with the packing in good shape, but most of the prepared slides were pre-broken. Started up fine, but the focus knob was sticky. I could focus in on one of the remaining prepared slides at the lower power per the directions. When I increased the power it needed to be re focused. That is where the sticky knob caused problems. It would begin to come into focus, then a bit more and it would "jump" past the focal point. Never did get it to focus at higher powers. Put it in the box for a couple days in disgust. Pulled it out again this morning to give it one more chance. Plugged in the transformer power, the led lit briefly then a burnt smell showed up and no more light, no LCD display, it was dead. First thing I've ever had to return to Amazon, relatively painless other than the 12 mile round trip drive to ship it back. Kind of funny, I combined the trip to UPS with a trip to the medical lab. Dropped off samples of crap at both places. Maybe this was a lemon. I didn't expect all that much for the price, but this was ridiculous.

I was very surprised at how well this works - the LCD screen produces a good picture and it is very easy to use. This was purchased for a seven year old and she had no problems figuring out how to use it. In fact, it was much easier than any other microscope we've tried in the past.

The microscope has a large dial on the side to change magnification from 2x to 24x. A small dial on the base adjusts focus easily. And the light can be made brighter or darker using a small dial on the other side of the base.

To use the microscope, you put a slide into a small tray and slide it into the viewing area. It can be a bit difficult to see exactly when the prepared area of the slide is in the right place because the top part is quite large. But after a few seconds of moving around, it works fine.

Since this has an LCD screen, it is VERY easy to view the slides. And we can do it together to discuss what is being viewed. The microscope comes with a camera inside to take pictures and it can be hooked up to a computer.

Another plus is that it comes with plug converters for US and European power outlets. So this can easily be shipped to friends overseas as a present.

The only downside is that the area into which you slip the slides is very small - so you will have to use slides. You can't put any other material in there.

In all, I'm very pleased with this purchase. At this price, the images this produces are quite sharp and very well defined. It was easy to use right out of the box and comes with a box of blank and 5-6 prepared slides.

This is for our daughter's 7th birthday. Within 10 min's of setup, she was successfully using it on her own. I left her to it, and was amazed at how easy it was for her to put everything away afterward as well.

We plan on purchasing prepared slides for her to look at with it. This is a great Biological microscope! =)

I just received the microscope and found that the 4x and 40x magnification settings cannot be properly focused. The specimen slide is placed on a movable platform that can be raised or lowered to focus the image. In the case of the 4x and 40x magnification settings, the slide can be raised until it physically impacts the lens, and additional focus movement is still required. I am hoping there is an internal detector or lens mounting issue, and I am returning the first unit as "defective". My observations may be consistent with the user who thought the focus was firm/stuck and physically broke their unit. The 10x magnification can be focused and it looks great.

I wanted to get my son a new microscope for his birthday. I spent three days googling everything from "the best for a 10yr" to "reviews for microscopes" and felt no better about it! Even the reviews on Amazon for this microscope were mixed, but I went with it and also purchsed the 50 sample slides(they had gross things like dog intestines etc..my son loved it!). Let me tell you my son was estatic about this. He is rough on his toys, well anything he owns, and it seems to be sturdy enough to hold up! For the price, I think its great for either adults or children, and the fact you can take pictures and then print them from your computer, well, between my son and I, we have been burning through some printer ink!! Its awesome!!!!!!


Celestron 44342 Round LCD Digital Microscope (Black)

The microscope looked great on Christmas Day. When I asked our 8 y/o boy the next day to bring it out of his room and so we could set it up, he came out carrying it with one hand on his shoulder, dropped it and broke it. Brilliant...

Pros: Great potential

Cons: Doesn't bounce even though it looks like a ball

I bought this for my grandson's 8th birthday and it's proven to be a good choice. I picked something that I would have wanted as a kid and the microscope filled the bill. He has managed to use it without breaking it which tells me it's pretty well built and he really likes to find gross stuff around the house, put it on a slide, magnify it and send the results out by email. Fun, educational and not too expensive makes for a good combination plus a new set of prepared slides will be a nice follow-up present for the next occasion.

My grand-daughter is 3 1/2. She is a sponge for learning material. Who, What, when, Where and How. We don't force learning on her but we try to expose her to all the topics she will encounter in K-3 and simply scrape the surface in each topic. She has 90% educational toys. She loves the microscope and she is building a relevant vocabulary..... Cells, Human, Animal and Plant. etc.
The Celestron Digital Microscope is a perfect learning tool gift for your child.