It is never easy.
R&S 2000 has 10 bit converter and works well with low signals. Also it has very good U/I concept, nice layout of screen for decoders, large hires touch screen (although shiny). It doesn't have 50 Ohm inputs. No searches of basic serial protocols (only CAN and LIN), and severely limited use of otherwise huge memory in a segmented mode, that is implemented as more of datasheet checklist feature than useful stuff.
GW Instek has much lower sample rate, lover max bandwidth, smaller no touch screen, U/I that is old school, but it is rock solid ( as in less buggy than R&S, on the level of Keysight), and many, many simply brilliant little things that just work as you would expect. It also doesn't have fancy phosphor emulation (it has some but not best I'we seen, which might be a problem or not depending on how people like it). Also no 50 Ohm input terminations.
All in all, very good and useful tool, well worth it's money.
Then you have newest Siglent SDS200X+. Very much similar to RTB2000 in concept (big touch screen, not shiny, GUI made for touch). Only 8 bit, but very low noise inputs and goes down to 500uV/div, large memory and as Nico will probably point it out, that is managed a bit differently than R&S, in manner like Picoscopes and Lecroy. That gives you seamless history frames and usable segmented mode with tools to manage it. It has tons of options and measurements, including Cycle To Cycle Jitter and histicons and histograms (LeCroy style), arbitrary math etc....
It also doesn't have serial protocols search, but unlike R&S who plainly said they don't plan to do it ever, they promised it will be added in due time.
SDS2000X+ is still being actively developed, and many improvements have been added to it since release.
So you see, there is no "one ring to rule them all". T&M equipment is expensive sport. Best strategy is to buy only equipment you really need right now.
Equipment is getting cheaper and better all the time. I firmly believe that days of "I'm gonna buy me a Mercedes, and keep it for 20 years" are gone.
So, you have to decide which things you really need, and which you don't, and just buy whatever fits that description in a budget you have.
For instance I wanted to buy RTM3000 2 years ago. I didn't. I bought Keysight MSOX3000T instead.
RTM3000 didn't have serial protocol searches and segmented memory management that is useful (and they still don't have it). MSOX3000T has it and it both search on everything and search, decode and measure with stats over full segmented memory. Also RTM3000 has better resolution FFT (and fabulous SA mode) than MSOX3000T, but that wasn't a problem. Keysight implementation is still very good for a FFT on a scope, and for more details and real SA work you need separate real SA anyways. MSOX3000T also came with tons of protocol decodes, etc. etc.
RTM3000 has much more memory than MSOX3000T, but Keysight is simply better to use and not artificially constrained.
MSOX3000T has only one problem (actually 2, it has smaller screen than RTM3000) is short memory. So it is not good for very long captures.
Because of that, for long decodes and long captures in general, i got Picoscope with 500MS of memory and 15-16 decoders. Decoding such long stuff should be done on PC anyways. Our member Nico that uses RTM3000 to grab long captures actually saves decode to file and opens it on PC for detailed analysis. I simply grab and decode right there on a PC with Picoscope.
My life would be much simpler if RTM3000 had all the capability of Keysight 3000T series in a new, long memory modern large screen U/I concept. I wouldn't need two scopes then.
But it doesn't, and I didn't buy it because it didn't fit my purpose. Combo of MSOX3000T+3046D Picoscope did, so I have that. And it works very well.
But I wanted very wide range of capabilities. I get all kinds of eclectic projects that sometimes need all kinds of reverse engineering. So I try to have as much capability as I can.
It's also business. I buy tools that will make money. That is my reason (and excuse
). For hobby, even Rigol DS1057Z or Micsig TO1104C go a long way.. very long way. And grab one of those cheap logic analyser thingies from China and you can decode for miles...
If you want very advanced scope for the money, that will get even better with time, and if you're willing to live with some quirks for now (like 888mdB instead of 0.88dB in FFT), Siglent SDS2000X+ is hard to beat, with caveats I mentioned, that might be resolved with time. Other option is GW Instek 2000E series. Rock solid and does everything (and much more ) that you mentioned. But is not fancy looking thing, screen is smaller, and U/I is old school (if I were to say what it reminds me to, I would say Tektronix MDO3000). If that fact that it a bit old fashioned doesn't bother you, that is one good instrument.
I'm disappointed in new Rigols (5000, 7000) because they have worse noise than older generation, lot of still unresolved issues, and lost chance to make better GUI. They are still good for digital stuff, high refresh rates, large memories etc. I wish if they could clean up the act and improve some shortcomings a bit.. It is a good thing to have freedom of choice.
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