Rigol DS1054Z Digital Oscilloscope 50 MHz DSO 4 Channels

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Compared to a 4 channel Instek

4.0

Getting my new Rigol with options bundled included I was eager to see the options. With the usual new equipment jitters, I was pleased to see they were all installed and I didn't have to do any downloading, etc. I wanted to see how the Rigol stacked up. From a Youtube review I knew the blue and green traces were similar. They are. The green I would say is teal but practically, light blue. However the 2 "blues" are distinguishable so not a problem. The pink I call purple. Also from a review it was known the font sizes of letters are small. They are. Some are quite small such as measurement data. It may be a problem. Not so good, I like the looks seeing an actual unit rather than pictures. From pictures I had thought it had a poor style to the design. Sharing a common control for vertical didn't pose much of a problem. Though at times switching trigger and back to which vertical channel I wanted did seem to be a lot of fiddling. A few cons. The select switch slips a lot making for a wrong selection. I talked to a guy at Rigol and he says he gets that a lot. He says muscle memory comes into play. I suppose. Also it's a hard press. Mechanically I wonder how long that switch will hold up. In acquisition the manual led me to believe I had a choice other than sin(x)/x. Apparently not, talking to Rigol. But the manual is for the 1000 series. Maybe so on other scopes. The screen appears smaller with the left menu. For holdoff ranging my Instek is better. I'm spoiled. The holdout is good though. For pros I like having hi res. I can see differences using it. While maybe old hat nowadays I think it's a great feature to have. Also Pattern triggering is potentially very useful. There are several other triggers I didn't have. Also in Math the option of being able to perform logical operations is exciting. In general usage the triggering is fine as is using different memory depths. While writing a review not a comparison, I say my Instek is the better performer for ease of use and functionality and the Rigol has more versatility. Right now, being a new scope for me, the Rigol is my main interest.

on Oct 04, 2020 I found this helpful (2)