Sometimes I do think, I have too many scopes but somehow they are all used.
I would not use my 1GHz MSOX3104A if I need to measure anything close to the upper BW limit.
For that I use the 6 GHz 6000X series scope.
But the one scope that I find most convenient to use is the 7000 series one. I have two of them and they are just very pleasing, not just for the large screen and fast response to any key input, they are in my opinion almost perfect scopes. And once in a while they are offered at really low cost on ebay.
I agree. I find the 7000 UI to be slightly more responsive compared to the 3000A, that might be another reason why I use it more than the 3000A. The 7000 boots more quickly. Both of these are probably due to the use of VxWorks in the 7000 compared to Windows CE in the 3000.
One further thing, the 7000B has a few more buttons and knobs compared to the 5000, 6000 and 7000A, it’s more similar to the 3000 in that respect, but the control layout between the 3000A and the 7000B is frustratingly slightly different which is a minor irritation.
There are a few extra bits of functionality on the 3000A that I like, but equally the 7000B has one or two things that the 3000A doesn’t such as optional equivalent time sampling which can be useful on high speed stuff.
The 1Mwfm/s of the 3000 frankly for me is very rarely of any benefit compared to the 100kwfm/s of the 7000. I’d rather have the deeper memory that the 7000 offers. The 3000 offers runt triggering but not the 7000, but then it’s incredibly rare I ever use that functionality. Nice to have, sure, but not at the top of my requirements.
My main criticism of both in my use cases is that neither decode faster than about 30MHz SPI.
Overall though it’s the Megazoom together with the super responsive UI that makes these scopes so useable on a day to day basis, and I can live with the relatively limited memory depth that it dictates.