Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat microscope, but hard to pick the right one on Amazon.
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2014
First off, let me say that this is an amazing microscope for the money. This unit is as good or better than the than Wild Instruments unit that is replaced, at a fraction of the cost.
Unfortunately, it is hard to compare the different models available on Amazon. As far as I can tell, they differ in...
1) Base and arm style
2) Availability of extra camera port
3) Included lenses and eyepieces
4) Illumination type
You should goto the AmScope website and walk though the "build your microscope" section to decide which features you want and then come back to Amazon and pick the package that matches. Note that you can also get some of the part a-la-carte to add on after you've gotten the unit picked out.
Which base you need depends on how you will use it. I got the double sliding arm base which is supper handy for desktop work because you can easily slide the microscope out of the way when not in use. The one I got also lets you adjust the view angle, which is probably overkill me - I could live with just being able to look straight down.
I also opted for the integrated camera mount, but this is not as useful as I had hoped. I imagined that I would be able to just quickly click off a photo of whatever I was looking at, but in practice this does not work because the camera does not see the same view as the eye pieces, the camera needs to be refocused, and you need to slide the metal rod on the left side to engage the camera optics, which disables the left eyepiece. Note that this took me a long time to figure out and does not seem to be mentioned in the manual anywhere.
For lenses, the 0.5x works great for SMD board work. It gives you about 8 inches of working space between the end of the microscope and the board and you can still easily see and work on 0402 and MSOP sized parts.
Rant on Manual Download:
The manual is not included. It must be downloaded from the website. To download it you need a password. To find the password, you have to open up the non-manual insert that comes in the box, which tells you to to use the password printed below. If the space below is blank (like mine), then the password is printed on the outside of the shipping box (which I had already tossed). I finally got back the box, and finally found the password *underneath* another label. Argh. After all that, I download the manual and found it to be almost completely unhelpful. Note to AmScope: You make a great microscope, now make a great manual and make it easy to download form the website without a password.
All complaints aside, this is a great microscope and if you spend a little time making sure you pick the right one for your needs, then you will be very happy with it.
