Choosing between entry-level 12-bit DSOs

[tautech]

I could use such a device as the Siglent without becoming infuriated more than once or twice a day, & that is pretty good for an "Old man who yells at test equipment"!

Many Siglent products are also rebadged and as such show a different brand name until they might be later flashed with Siglent firmware.....

[Mechatrommer]

It is much less cluttered than the Rigol, & just says "SIGLENT" once, in a small font, unlike Rigol who have to shout "RIGOL" at us & in addition have a large "R" badge.
I'll know if I'm using a Rigol, so why do they have to keep reminding me?

I'll know if I'm using a Siglent, so why do they have to put the name there? similar to watch and date, its not the job for scope to tell me that (subjective?). the fact is, no its not for you, it just to piss you off when someone link a screencapture here, because you are rigol hater to take it positively... top and bottom bar already that big, so they have to size accordingly, but many of you got pissed off from afar, amazing!

[Fungus]

I counted the pixels and Siglent is only 10% more vertically.


In practical terms that's hardly any difference at all.

[vk6zgo]

It is much less cluttered than the Rigol, & just says "SIGLENT" once, in a small font, unlike Rigol who have to shout "RIGOL" at us & in addition have a large "R" badge.
I'll know if I'm using a Rigol, so why do they have to keep reminding me?

I'll know if I'm using a Siglent, so why do they have to put the name there? similar to watch and date, its not the job for scope to tell me that (subjective?). the fact is, no its not for you, it just to piss you off when someone link a screencapture here, because you are rigol hater to take it positively... top and bottom bar already that big, so they have to size accordingly, but many of you got pissed off from afar, amazing!

Indeed, there is no need for any 'scope to have their name on the viewing area----they all have a big logo on the instrument itself.
I don't have any brand of DSO, so am not really a Rigol hater, but I just don't like displays which are cluttered with extra information.
Those who do own a Rigol become adept at ignoring the information they need & mentally "zooming in" on the information & features they are interested in.

[ebastler]

Indeed, there is no need for any 'scope to have their name on the viewing area----they all have a big logo on the instrument itself.

Screenshots, stored or shared with others?

[Martin72]

With Lecroy you can at least choose between a screenshot with or without a watermark.

[ebastler]

Siglent's solution for placing the on-screen logo always looks a bit awkward to me: Jammed in with the trigger state & counter, it looks a bit like an afterthought.

If we assume that the logo is really there to identify the scope in screenshots, wouldn't it be an option to insert it in screenshots only? It could replace items which are of no use and don't carry any information -- e.g. the main menu items in the upper left, which are really only useful for interacting with them, but not in the screenshot. There would even be room for the full model designation of the scope then, next to the Siglent logo.

[nctnico]

I counted the pixels and Siglent is only 10% more vertically.

In practical terms that's hardly any difference at all.

Indeed. The Rigol may look like it is pushing more information on screen but in reality the difference is minimal (and none if you take into account the Siglent screenshot doesn't show where you are in the acquisition data).

[Electro Fan]

Siglent's solution for placing the on-screen logo always looks a bit awkward to me: Jammed in with the trigger state & counter, it looks a bit like an afterthought.

If we assume that the logo is really there to identify the scope in screenshots, wouldn't it be an option to insert it in screenshots only? It could replace items which are of no use and don't carry any information -- e.g. the main menu items in the upper left, which are really only useful for interacting with them, but not in the screenshot. There would even be room for the full model designation of the scope then, next to the Siglent logo.

+1

Having the logo on screen shots stored or shared with others can make sense, but those could be optionally added like a watermark (and optionally a few other pieces of data such as model, date/time). I often wonder what model produced the screen shots we see here.  But users should be able to turn such info off to reclaim/declutter display real estate.

[ebastler]

I counted the pixels and Siglent is only 10% more vertically.
In practical terms that's hardly any difference at all.

Indeed. The Rigol may look like it is pushing more information on screen but in reality the difference is minimal (and none if you take into account the Siglent screenshot doesn't show where you are in the acquisition data).

If you consider Rigol's "navigation" inset in the window frame to be part of the useful net information, it's 442 vs. 484 pixels, the 10% difference claimed by Fungus. If you just look at the main trace display, it's 414 vs. 484. That is quite noticeable in practice, at least for my taste.

And nevertheless Siglent fits more useful information into the bottom bar, e.g. the probe attenuation and detailed settings for each math function and zoom. And they fit in the top menu bar which gives you more direct access to many settings, where Rigol requires an extra tap on the "gearwheel" menu (plus some extra time to get your bearings once that menu opens).

I actually liked the Rigol UI on my DHO1074. The larger screen offers more room, so they do display math function details, and the "decorative" elements take a smaller percentage of the screen real estate. But for my taste, Rigol did not do a good job scaling the UI down to the smaller DHO800/900 screen. They should reduce the size of fonts and icons a bit, and remove or reduce the various trimmings, to leave more net area for traces and results.

[Fungus]

The grid squares are 100x52 on Rigol and 100x60 on the Siglent.

They both have 8 squares so that gives 64 pixels more vertically.

Not nothing, but I'm not buying that it will stop anybody from doing their job.

[pdenisowski]

Indeed, there is no need for any 'scope to have their name on the viewing area----they all have a big logo on the instrument itself.

As someone who has taken a lot of screenshots on a lot of different T&M instruments - I think the logo is mostly there for marketing reasons.  You can easily have information such as name, serial number, etc. added to the screenshot (but not appear on the screen) for "documentation" purposes.

I don't find it terribly objectionable as long as it either (a) can be turned off or (b) is not occupying space that could / should be used for other information. 

We get a lot of feedback on what people want in screenshots, and the answers are all over the place, so how screenshots get implemented is always something of a compromise.

[2N3055]

The grid squares are 100x52 on Rigol and 100x60 on the Siglent.

They both have 8 squares so that gives 64 pixels more vertically.

Not nothing, but I'm not buying that it will stop anybody from doing their job.

That is whooping 15% difference....

SDS800xHD has full 70mm vertical waveform space out of display active 85mm vertically.
Rigol has 60mm by that token..

That is full centimeter difference..

But I know that I can enable two rows of measurements and still have same space vertically (60mm)for waveforms as Rigol vertical maximum. And full width of screen horizontally, with not a single pixel taken left and right.

Is that important or not I don't know.

[tggzzz]

Indeed, there is no need for any 'scope to have their name on the viewing area----they all have a big logo on the instrument itself.

I don't find it terribly objectionable as long as it either (a) can be turned off or (b) is not occupying space that could / should be used for other information. 

Those are the key points, of course.

As for your screenshots,the first one looks pretty acceptable.

In the second one, why are there useless hieroglyphs "turn left", "dustbin", "target in a circle", "broken comb", "pencil", "cog", "downvoted hamburger" and similar hieroglyphs on the RHS?
They add nothing, except visual noise.
They subtract from the information area.
They should be deleted.

[Fungus]

But I know that I can enable two rows of measurements and still have same space vertically (60mm)for waveforms as Rigol vertical maximum. And full width of screen horizontally, with not a single pixel taken left and right.

Can you put them vertically at the side? Rigol can.

[Fungus]

Just a heads-up on Rigol's hackability:

A little preview
(Attachment Link)

[ebastler]

Can you put [measurements] vertically at the side? Rigol can.

"Can" is an interesting way of saying it. They do, always, right? Which is not a bad design choice per se, given that the screen is pretty wide and not very tall.

But again, they use that measurement sidebar in a very wasteful manner. How many measurements can you fit there? And even if you want just one enabled -- say the hardware counter -- the full-height sidebar takes up a lot of screen real estate.

[2N3055]

But I know that I can enable two rows of measurements and still have same space vertically (60mm)for waveforms as Rigol vertical maximum. And full width of screen horizontally, with not a single pixel taken left and right.

Can you put them vertically at the side? Rigol can.

Point was ("whoosh over your head....") that when I enable measurements I still have same vertical space as you with nothing enabled, and full 155mm of horizontal space.
You have a choice of 10mm vertically less  with no measurements or same vertical but 30mm horizontally less with measurements.
So it is a lose-lose proposition.
No matter how you sugar coat it it is less.

Does that make a difference to people, I don't know. But less it is.

[Harrow]

I'd like to know why the graticules are so rectangular on both the RIGOL and SIGLENT? The FNIRSI has square graticules (with 70mm of vertical waveform space) and I don't know why you'd make them any other shape? You can set the time base to whatever you want to fit a cycle to the visible window, so why are the graticules stretched so much? It looks odd to me.

(You can add it to the list, 2N3055....square graticules. FNIRSI is climbing the list, lol. )

[shapirus]

I'd like to know why the graticules are so rectangular on both the RIGOL and SIGLENT?

Good plotting software developers know that the number of major and minor tics on each of the axes is an important parameter that must be user-configurable.

The answer to your "why" is probably because there are no software developers at either Siglent or Rigol who can into proper plot visualization.

[ebastler]

I'd like to know why the graticules are so rectangular on both the RIGOL and SIGLENT? The FNIRSI has square graticules (with 70mm of vertical waveform space) and I don't know why you'd make them any other shape? You can set the time base to whatever you want to fit a cycle to the visible window, so why are the graticules stretched so much? It looks odd to me.

Having 10 divisions horizontally is quite convenient: Makes it trivial to know the whole duration of the sweep, and to translate between the sampling rate and the number of data points on the screen. But with the wide-screen displays which are common (read "cost-effective") today, the typical 8*10 divisions will not be square.

Fnirsi has chosen to use 14 horizontal divisions, which I find a bit annoying. For you, it's the non-square graticule which looks odd. We pay our money, we make our choices, I guess...

[tautech]

I'd like to know why the graticules are so rectangular on both the RIGOL and SIGLENT?

Depends if you have the menus auto hide or not.

[2N3055]

How do you keep graticules perfect square?
By preserving aspect ratio.
When you add anything to the screen, waveform area would shrink by square of linear dimension change..

And also, any plot aspect ratio is irrelevant.
Did nobody notice that when you change timebase or vertical that you distort signal vertically and horizontally.
And signal is not aligned to graticule anyways...

So perfect square graticule is useless anyways...
Graticule is simple visual helper.
Some people use light grid or no grid whatsoever.

[pdenisowski]

As for your screenshots,the first one looks pretty acceptable.

In the second one, why are there useless hieroglyphs "turn left", "dustbin", "target in a circle", "broken comb", "pencil", "cog", "downvoted hamburger" and similar hieroglyphs on the RHS?
They add nothing, except visual noise.
They subtract from the information area.
They should be deleted.

I guess you're trying to be funny with the names since the icons have labels: they are "undo" (a really useful function), "delete (a window)", "zoom," "FFT", etc.  Users actually really like these.

These are configurable on-screen shortcuts for basic functions.  I'm not sure how much additional screen space you could get by deleting them since acquisition, trigger, etc. settings are displayed to the right of them.

Frankly, I think our scope displays are a lot less cluttered than most other scopes, but de gustibus ...

[Mechatrommer]

So perfect square graticule is useless anyways...
Graticule is simple visual helper.
Some people use light grid or no grid whatsoever.

not useless, but we need to think rationally, esp if you are the programmer of dso. today screen is 16:9, not like the old day like what? 3:2? with top and bottom screen already occupied by some technical informations, in order to get old day ratio 3:2, most of the side screen will be empty, filling it with logos and icons will create hatred anyway... its hillarious why people still come up with archaic rule of thumb, maybe its to keep the thread going here are some comparison from old and today screen, pay attention to graph width and height aspect ratio vs LCD screen's aspect ratio....







talking about wasting screen area, here is $16K scope... you cant win!