Best Oscilloscope under $300?

[Aldo22]

@tatel: You brought the Zeeweii into this topic, not me. 

[2N3055]

A couple of years ago I was stupid enough to spend 2500 euro on a Siglent scope which ended up in the trash. A useless POS and the (authorised!) Siglent distributor didn't want to take it back.

Oops!   

Oops indeed, Nico's memory cells are in failure mode, it was 10 years ago ! !

And Siglent still can't get decode to work reliably between firmware updates... Technical support doesn't even know the use case for protocol decoding and gives an utter BS answer. But also more recently Siglent gear I thought was good enough, failed miserably for basic functionality.

How about Rigol releasing nonfunctional scope that violates Nyquist? How about Keysight last year making, putting into documentation,  and starting to sell option to decode USB2 on MSOX3000T just to realize that scope has FPGA that does not support it, only after customers started complaining why it does not work?

Or R&S releasing MXO4 that has actual zone trigger button but it is not implemented. And not yet, after few months. On 24k scope.
Did you mention that Keysight and AIM TTi AWG also did not not support your specific requirements.
Do you mention that also they should not buy Keysight scopes because you don't like them.
And that (expensive) Tektronix AWG you bought in the end also have bugs....

Just for the sake of completeness, you know.. Unbiased info..

P.S.  I have equipment from Rigol, Siglent, Keysight and AIM-TTi. They all work well for what they are... As for fixing bugs, worst is Rigol, but they also eventually get it to functional product. Just much slower than others, so just don't buy it first year after release....
And even Keysight has some minor bugs 8 years after release, one of which I found and was point blank said they won't fix it because they couldn't care less, because it is obscure and hard to replicate...

[nctnico]

Did you mention that Keysight and AIM TTi AWG also did not not support your specific requirements.
And that (expensive) Tektronix AWG you bought in the end also have bugs....

And the Siglent cheering crowd has entered the building  Maybe it is time to tell how much are they paying you (either in money or discounts)?

You are wrong in many ways. To name a few: I didn't test the Keysight AWG so I don't know, the AIM TTi AWG just didn't meet specifications so simply wasn't suitable and the Tektronix AWG doesn't have bugs that I know off. What Shahiar claimed was a bug ended up being operator error. And I never wrote I don't like Keysight scopes; it is just that their memory is rather short for doing embedded development so may not be ideal for that purpose. At least get your facts straight. Pointing out faults in other products is a rather dumb diversion tactic to hide the fact the manufacturer you like so much keeps dropping the ball in so many stupid ways it isn't even funny. Get your own house in order before making comments towards others.

[Martin72]

And the Siglent cheering crowd has entered the building

And who was it before that?
People who had a bad experience ages ago and have been living off it ever since...
Have you broadened your horizons in the meantime and borrowed an SDS5000X, an SDS2000Xplus, an SDS2000X HD or even a 6000 or 7000 for testing?
The earth has continued to turn since your experience, I know, sometimes you don't feel that way.
Get the devices from today to test so that you can have your say, otherwise it sounds like a long-playing record that always jumps back and forth in the same place.
Instead, you accuse others of being paid cheerleaders.
Think about what kind of style that is.
Sorry, but I think you are actually a competent, smart person.
Posts like this from you are completely irritating.

[nctnico]

And the Siglent cheering crowd has entered the building

And who was it before that?
People who had a bad experience ages ago and have been living off it ever since...

Not years ago and not one bad experience. If only it was 1 bad, isolated experience...  And I'm not the only one. Just read Siglent's response to a serious problem:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-1202x-e-serial-decoding-not-working/msg5180694/#msg5180694
They don't even know the real world use case! That is the most alarming part. But then the apologists get in and claim the equipment is too cheap to make it work as it should. Tell me I'm wrong to call that out?

I have had much better experiences with tech support from Tektronix and Keysight. I even went as far asking Keysight very specific questions about the long term reliability of one of their products. Their engineers went down to the component level in order to answer that question. And I'm not a big customer at all (far from it). Not saying Keysight never goes wrong, but they know their stuff and make it right.

[tautech]

And the Siglent cheering crowd has entered the building

And who was it before that?
People who had a bad experience ages ago and have been living off it ever since...
Have you broadened your horizons in the meantime and borrowed an SDS5000X, an SDS2000Xplus, an SDS2000X HD or even a 6000 or 7000 for testing?
The earth has continued to turn since your experience, I know, sometimes you don't feel that way.
Get the devices from today to test so that you can have your say, otherwise it sounds like a long-playing record that always jumps back and forth in the same place.
Instead, you accuse others of being paid cheerleaders.
Think about what kind of style that is.
Sorry, but I think you are actually a competent, smart person.
Posts like this from you are completely irritating.

This.

Hell, if you are prepared to test many and continually go up the ladder in search of higher BW anyone else can too.
They just need a will to do it.

However, the topic is best cheap scope, which is an entirely fluid situation as it is always changing.

[2N3055]

Did you mention that Keysight and AIM TTi AWG also did not not support your specific requirements.
And that (expensive) Tektronix AWG you bought in the end also have bugs....

And the Siglent cheering crowd has entered the building  Maybe it is time to tell how much are they paying you (either in money or discounts)?

Serves me right to try a fact based discussion with you.....
How much is R&S paying you to go into every Siglent topic to state R&S has superior decoding ...

Is this only level of discussion you are able to produce.??
Personal insults, insinuations and hate..?

[baldurn]

Not years ago and not one bad experience. If only it was 1 bad, isolated experience...  And I'm not the only one. Just read Siglent's response to a serious problem:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-1202x-e-serial-decoding-not-working/msg5180694/#msg5180694
They don't even know the real world use case! That is the most alarming part. But then the apologists get in and claim the equipment is too cheap to make it work as it should. Tell me I'm wrong to call that out?

I have had much better experiences with tech support from Tektronix and Keysight. I even went as far asking Keysight very specific questions about the long term reliability of one of their products. Their engineers went down to the component level in order to answer that question. And I'm not a big customer at all (far from it). Not saying Keysight never goes wrong, but they know their stuff and make it right.

Is it really fair to compare tech support for a product at least 10 times (or 100 times!) more expensive?

While the issue was handled badly by Siglent tech support, it does not really seem to be that big of a deal. It is a bad firmware for one specific submodel of a scope and the fix is to downgrade to the previous firmware and wait for an update. No other scopes are affected. Somehow you extended this into a general problem with Siglent, which it clearly is not.

[Aldo22]

The general excitement level indicates a full moon. 

[tatel]

At this point I think OP should have a clear picture about which advice is to be followed if he wants to waste his money. Enough said about that.

Other things to take into account:

a) It's worth to pay more to be sure the device you are buying does rigth what you want it to do.

b) It's worth to make additional searches before buying, to be sure the device you are considering does right what you want it to do. Don't take any advice in this thread as more than just a heading towards perhaps the right direction. Your homework is to know what you need, and to check carefully the device you are considering is able to do it right, before buying. Learning begins before buying, sorry. If you don't do your homework, you'll be spending your money willi-nilly. You could get bitten, and only you would be guilty for it. People speaking here does not necessarily own the devices you are considering.

c) It's worth to open new threads to ask questions if -after some searchs- you are still unsure the device you are considering does right what you want it to do. Asking questions specifically about some device will probably bring some owners to explain to you what they like/don't like on that device.

d) Even when asking about  an specific device, make sure to ask questions and get answers about the characteristics you are interested in. Owners of that device could be not using that characteristic and be unaware of any problems on it.

e) It's worth to buy from some seller that abides with consumer protection law and takes returns, just because you don't like what you got after all.

Last, even on the 400 bucks range, you'll probably won't get all you want. Say you hope to get a device with intregrated logic analyzer. There are devices in that range advertising that capability, but at work time, you could find they are not working as you were expecting.You could need to go up to a thousand bucks range to have a chance of getting that right. That's just an example. There will probably some compromise/choice to be made.

To avoid getting your ass bitten, the only way is to search and learn what you need, to do what you want. Quite a few hours of previous work. It will be easier if you do your homework, so you will be able to ask the right questions. Just a generic question as "best device on 300 bucks range" is not the best thing to do.

Take it easy, and good luck