Some thoughts on critics made on this thread by others.
Overall economy design: makes little difference if it does not impact measurement integrity, longevity, EMC and safety compliance. Performance testing on EEVblog #824 was not extensive, but elsewhere on eevblog forum shows both 1000B and 2000E does what its spec sheet says it does, and few bugs of concern.
Hopefully the discussion will interest Dave in a shootout between 1000B and the other scopes in his lab.
Longevity criteria are difficult to quantify, we can only qualify its long term quality by the reputation of the manufacturer and examining the teardown.
In general, GWInstek devices have a reputation for very long lifetimes, regardless of our concern for their choice of internal components or design choices.
Nevertheless, the components on the PCB appear to be good quality and make. Instek devices rarely have any problems with their chassis, such as cracked knobs, or erratic rotary encoders such reported on the Rigol 1054e.
The fan is in an odd place, true, but the scope remains cooler than the Rigol 1052e to touch and vents as shown in the douglasfim post video.
My unit is also quieter than the Rigol 1054e.
EMC and safety were done by GWInstek as CE certificates only, and GWInstek tends to live up to CE conformity. Nevertheless Lack of NRTL listing could be a problem in some workplaces due to liability, but this DSO is CAT1 device only, so there is no practical risk to users with proper use.
EMC could be a problem but if it were it would appear as unintended pickup by a DUT or probe cables. A quick check of near field emissions show it highest right atop the unshielded top portion of the power supply, the highest being -50dBV rms at 60kHz.
Practically speaking, if emissions were higher it be illegal to sell in the USA by FCC regulations.
Concerned users can buy conductive tape, about $10 a roll, and line the interiors of the plastic rear case and ground it to improve the EMC.
FWIW, the Rigol 1052e is TUV listed and has no emissions I can detect from its all metal internal chassis.
As pointed out in another review, these series use a off the shelf Taiwan made Lytec PSU model lp6304 which has its own CE safety and EMC certificate.
Chassis: reminds me of Keysight Infiniivision 2000 series. 2000E and 1000B series have identical basic mold. Like some Infiniivision models, there are buttons that do nothing but are cheap enough not remove during chassis assembly. As an economy move, only minor changes need be made on the mold to create a new chassis, and while distracting, the non-functional buttons do not impact performance.
The overall size, being tall and wide, makes it less cramped to work fingers with and uses less bench floor space.
The metal frame is mostly infront of the scope as a shield, PCB mounts and structural rigidity. It does a good shielding job, the scope lives up to its noise budget of ~500uVpp, this is at maximum gain too, with channels plugged with 50 ohm terminators and tested also with the supplied probes connected and shorted, regardless not measured with the channels left open circuit.
So in summary the striking economy moves in this series are:
Single mold chassis for the entire 1000B and 2000E series
Lack of third party safety and EMC certificates
Reduction in metal chassis surrounding the DSO core
Zync SoC
off the shelf PSU