Well, needless to say, without question, you get a whole lotta scope for very few $'s with this Rigol model. And that they are throwing in free legitimate Rigol software upgrade is a real bonus with this deal. (I assume that they are going for marketshare.) Although there are a few places on line to get the free hack, at least you'll know this one is legitimate and not an illegal activation (the seller will email you the instructions after purchase). Make sure you save the activation information just in case there is any problems in the future.

While this is the most advanced scope I've worked with, I still have some remarks.

The Three Year Warranty is a nice touch and adds assurance to any purchase of this type.

The first negative thought jumped right out at me, Rigol has selected the color selections of the 4 channels for us. But Ch 2 + 4 are nearly identical, at least through my cataract eyeballs. There are so many options for this, why select 2 that are so close? Why not provide the end user the option to change these colors? (I realize that this is petty concern, but it just demonstrates poor engineering, which I detest).

Unlocking the additional options requires a process that seems more appropriate for launching a nuclear missile, not unlocking a purchase option that can be obtained on several websites around the web for free.

This thing is so much smaller than my old 2 ch. Philips analog scope, that I think I paid approx. $600 for; and I know it is silly, but I keep wishing that it was battery powered internally. Just because it feels like it should be portable.

There were other minor issues that I knew about, because they were well documented by others here.

All in all, I love this scope, and I doubt that feeling will change.

As the executive summary that you get , to save from having to watch all the YouTube videos on the scope:

> It is super value for the money, you get an great basic expandable scope for very little money
Is it as good as a $5000 or $10,000+ Rhode&Schwarz or Tektronix scope? No, but if your not working in frequency ranges up there in the cell phone region, you don't need that capability.

And as noted: the scopes now (2020) come with many of the add-on options already enabled:
The ability to record/playback, the full memory depth of 24M/12M/6M are on out of the box.
The trigger options from Timeout and Runt through to the serial RS232, I2C and SPI are all enabled out of box.
The serial decoder capability for RS232, I2C, SPI data packets are enabled out of the box.

And you can turn on the bandwith to upgrade this 50MHz scope to the 100MHz capability very easily.
And you can turn on the extra small vertical sensitivity down to 500uV capability very easily.

The scope comes with 4 probes and yes, it does come with colored plastic rings to color code the probes to match the colors on the physical front side and display trace colors.
EXCEPT: this is issue #1 - the 4th channel is navy blue, a dark blue. But the rings (Aug 2020) don't have that color, they instead have a pastel green ring set. So the 4th channel probes cannot be color coded to match the scope with whats delivered - you would have to leave off the color rings for the 4th probe, or first paint the green rings with navy blue permanent marker, and then snap them on. (Seriously Rigol, this little stuff really does matter). I asked Rigol support about this and they said they changed it from the darker blue as the dark blue and cyan blue were too similar. Good idea, bit you needed to also change the front panel adhesive face to be green on channel 4 and the firmware to draw in green.

The only other issue I've noticed so far is, what has been an issue from the beginning and still is as the hardware wasn't updated in production. The INTENSITY knob, that you also use to select between options or to select letters/numbers in the keyboard mode, and then have to PRESS in to choose that option/letter/digit... is badly designed such that quite often, your selection will shift by one as you are pressing the button down. What a pain in #*$* that is, as you will have to double check and very carefully press that button every time you're making an adjustment with that knob. Sheesh. Entering a 24 digit activation code requires not 24, but more like 50-65 presses and back-space re-do to get the right letters/numbers keyed in. For adjusting brightness its no issue, but when your are choosing, say your probe multiplier (to switch between 10x and 1x) and the damn thing constantly jumps to 2x as you press the button, it gets old fast. Rigol, seriously. Increase the price $10 and put a light detent having, higher quality rotary encoder in this position.

So if it wasn't for the sloppy missing color ring for probe 4, and the absolute error prone pain that INTENSITY selector knob is, this would be a 5 star scope.. but its not. Still 4 stars ain't bad and it does only cost 350-ish.

Maybe someone will hack it and recommend an upgraded encoder knob hardware some day. But wait, they have. Search YouTube for "Rigol Rotary Switch replacement".

This is my first oscilloscope. I started off in Computer Science in college, and programming was my main passion for most of my life. I only discovered electronics about 5-6 years ago, and it's been my life since then! I've built many projects involving microcontrollers, Raspberry Pi, single-board computers, etc. So far, I've gotten by with mainly my voltmeter and studying my circuit issues on paper. I've delayed getting an oscilloscope for years due to the high cost. Well not anymore! I looked into it time and time again, but this particular one caught my eye. It has very good reviews in the hobbyist community, and seems like a solid choice. So given my background, I have a solid concept of how I would use it, but have yet to use mine for anything other than learning about it. This is why I trust the reviews of other more experienced people out there.

I only received my scope a few days ago, and the first thing I did was adjust the compensation of all my probes using the built-in square wave generator, which was cool. So far everything seems to work as expected, and the device is very well packaged for protection (double-walled box, thick closed-cell foam brackets). The probes seem quite nice, and work as I would expect. The manual covers the basics, but it is NOT a oscilloscope tutorial. I've been poking around the menus and the other basic functions, but there's so much there, I probably will never use most of it. It's nice to know it's there, though. The help function is really cool.

The overall unit feels very solid. The screen is very nice - it's got a nice matte surface and the color looks good to me. It does lose a lot of brightness when viewed from below the screen (ie. when the scope is above you and you need to look up at it). There's no problem when viewing from above or from the sides by my eyes. People have complained about the fan, and while it's a little noisy, it's not THAT big of a deal for me. Yes, I would prefer it was more quiet. There is info out there on people replacing their fans. It appears to be a 60mm fan, and I'd probably try to put a Noctua fan in there, since I'm a big fan (pun intended) of theirs.

Once I confirmed that my probes were basically working, I went online to do my "upgrade hack". My machine is very new, and has software version 00.04.03.SP2. I can confirm that the online hack DOES work on this firmware version. As soon as I entered it, the installed options all lost their "expiration time" readings, indicating they are permanently functional. Haven't yet tested them.

I'm hoping to get to know my new scope much more in the upcoming months. I'll probably start off checking the power rails on a single-board computer I'm building now, and then probably check the system clocks just to familiarize myself with looking at pretty simple signals, and getting the graphs to appear in a way that makes sense to me. Maybe then I'll get into figuring out how to trigger stuff in a way that makes sense.

So I'm very happy with it, and so far I would recommend it.

An excellent product, great scope for beginners and home-workshop types who want pro-class features without spending thousands. Bright, readable screen (though the fonts might be a tad small for some eyes), good color coding of onscreen info to match color coded input jacks and probes. Persistence shading feature helps to visualize complex signals, spot glitches and observe trends. Very powerful measurement and analysis tools, for measuring peak/rms voltage, frequency, pulse width, any many other characteristics of a signal. Hardware frequency counter for accurate frequency measurement even if the signal isn't entirely visualized onscreen. Digital logic-analyzer functions including protocol decoders (I2C, SPI, RS232) and a variety of digital trigger options are included with the base firmware, so no real need to riglol it, unless you want the 100MHz bandwidth. 24MSa memory seems to be stock now as well, which is a huge amount of memory for an instrument in this class, and very handy for zooming in on details of a waveform or capturing/decoding bursts of digital data. Good quality PDF manual is readily available online, and there are many videos that will teach beginners how to use this scope. My only minor complaints are that the rotary encoders are a little mushy and occasionally jump a step when pressed to enter a value, and there seem to be some tiny DC offset issues when multiple channels are used, that are not completely corrected by the auto-calibration. All in all, though, a great value.

Revised my prior review. This is an affordable yet robust entry level scope that is upgradable. I gave it 5 stars because what you get significantly outweighs the shortcomings.

But understand a few things.

1. The the cooling fan creates a lot of noise. But if you're looking into buying one of these things then you probably know enough to competently open the device - at your own risk - and replacing and/or shielding it better.

2. Not the best probes but certainly not the worst. Maybe I got a bad batch but mine are obnoxiously difficult to tune. Again, this is an impressive device for the price so you have to accept the tradeoff to be fair. The $5000 analog scopes I recall using in undergrad couldn't do half of the things this is capable of and took up twice the bench top real estate.

3. It's a bit slow at times to trigger but again. This is easily one of the "˜highest-end-budget-scopes' "¦ at least available on Amazon.

If anyone from Rigol is reading this please also consider making a detailed series [See Keystone] on how to use this scope. There are a lot of reviews, and many videos on oscilloscopes readily available, however there is something left to be desired on practical ways to use the versatility of this scope for more intermediate and advanced folks.