Cheap digital scope

Neato...A disposable scope :P

...but haven't heard of Uni-T.

D from BC British Columbia Canada

This looks like their website:

Bob

This is the kind of stuff where the "big two" might initially laugh and scoff. A few years down the road that might turn into "Oh dang!". Remember when the first VW Beetles showed up and the top managers from the big three had a major ROFL episode? None of them laughs anymore.

With all due respect to the Chinese, the VW Beetle was a German engineering effort. These scopes are (most likely) just cheap copies.

HP and Tek will lose some business, but they can innovate and come out with useful *new* stuff. The Chinese haven't shown that ability, yet.

Bob

So true. A lot of our electronic gear is out of China these days. The quality is generally going upward, not downward.

They don't have much of a rep - yet. You are much safer going for a similarly priced Rigol unit (cheaper in fact in this case). They are proven performers and decent quality, which is why Agilent rebadge them.

Or perhaps one of the newer 1000 series Rigols if your bandwidth requirements can be lowered.

Dave.

Just realised the Uni-T has 1M of sample memory. That's huge compared to the 4K in the 5000 series Rigol. Might be worth the extra money and risk if that's important to you.

Dave.

Don't know anything about their scopes but I bought a Uni UT60 dvm from Marlin Jones

-- Regards, Carl Ijames carl dott ijames aat verizon dott net (remove nospm or make the obvious changes before replying)

Maybe, but these scopes appear to have all the features I need for the foreseeable future. Only question is reliability.

That Instek GDS-2204 here on the bench runs circles around similar Tek scopes. Not just because it has ten times their storage depth. Engineered in Taiwan. I bought it not because it was cheaper but because it was better.

Remember when engineers said that flat panel displays will always be a domain of the western world? Go to CostCo and take a look around ...

Yeah, and complacency or arrogance will not change that. IMHO those two traits have just about ruined our big three in automotive. Now everybody buys Toyota Priuses.

I don't think the 5000 series from Rigol is a good buy. Deep memory is what you want in a DSO.

Can someone tell Tektronix?

Very interesting about the Instek. How good is the triggering?

I'm on the market for a new digital scope and one of my major complaints about my old Tektronix one is that the triggering capabilities just plain suck!

I agree. The 5000 series is an older model, almost discontinued. But at least they have a good rep and their scopes work well, but the newer models with deeper memory are more expensive than the OP's Uni-T price point. Uni-T brand, hmm, no one has posted a review yet that I am aware of. I'd be surprised if there weren't at least a few firmware bugs.

Dave.

In which case, how easy to upgrade the firmware?

No idea. Perhaps send Uni-T an email enquiry and ask what their policy is about releasing firmware upgrades. No response = warning. Might be mentioned in the manual, worth a good read before making your decision.

Dave.

There is a $79 shipping charge in the U.S. for the UNI-T digital storage scope.

Howard