Modern budget scopes, just how good are they?

[T4P]

for $450 I snagged a Lecroy 9374C 1ghz 4 channel scope, circa 2000.

Big and heavy. Not a problem if you live in the states or the UK, overseas? BIG PROBLEM. And obviously a CRT can't last long ... Guess how much it costs to ship a 13kg item from US?

[AndyC_772]

Dunno why yall are buying new scopes.

If you are willing to put in some time researching and trolling ebay or the likes, you will come out with a MUCH more capable scope from yesteryear.

Warranty, reliability and expected service life would be the main reasons, given that there's never, ever a good time to find a piece of test equipment isn't working any more. Smaller physical size, less weight and portability are all nice to have too.

Don't get me wrong, I like my 14 year old Tektronix (a rare Ebay bargain) a lot, but it's not going to last forever and it's not an instrument which is at all straightforward or cheap to service or repair. It was inexpensiev to buy for what it is (4 channels, 500 MHz), but that has to be weighed up against how long it can be expected to last.

[PA4TIM]

I think it will last longer as a cheap Chinese scope. My Tek 547 is in better shape as my DS1102 when I sold the Rigol for 50 euro after three years ( trigger button fell off, some other switches did not respond half of the time and in the meanwhile the powerbutton has stopped functioning I have heard from the new owner.
I had a while a Tek 210 ( can not remember the whole type, the one with the white screen and black trace) here from a friend. That scope was over 10 years old, only 60 MHz, less functions as the Rigol but I used it more then the Rigol and that model is not realy known as one of the betters Teks but on several Tests it outperformed the 100MHz Rigol.

[ejeffrey]

You are probably the only person I've ever heard complement the Lecroy UI! 

I used to have a circa 2001 Lecroy wavepro 950 series (I think), and I loved the UI. Whichever model it was, we got it on an educational clearance sale when they were transitioning from their old embedded OS to WinCE.  At the time the only other digital scope I had ever used was the tek tds210, so it is possible I wouldn't have the same reaction today, but I really liked it.

[M0BSW]

I wasn't confused about digital scopes until now, as I take my tender steps into electronics, I find my Telequipment D61 A 10Mhz anologue scope just fine, repaired a few old transistor radio with this scope along with a black Star 500k function generator,and a 5001 universal corporation freq counter, home made component tester and 2 multimeters, despite all the Digital, my additional scope will be TEK 200mhz  analogue one, some of us are still minnows in the very large pond, and don't really understand the digital scopes plus they are expensive. I'm a low tech kinda person.

[ptricks]

One of the biggest hurdles the low cost scopes seem to have trouble conquering is the front end. I have seen scopes that use just a long wire to connect the front connectors, not shielded, not even carefully placed , just hanging loose.

I couldn't afford any of the newer scopes like the Rigol so one option was to take an older crt based scope, tap its front end before it goes to the display chip, and supply that to a ADC of my own. Best of both worlds.