This thread has gone round in circles for orbits of the earth
![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif.pagespeed.ce._hfWAz_QHO.gif)
FWIW's this is my take on this:
I have many scopes personally, some fall into the catagory Dave's video mentioned with rolled eyes (lol), some are what I would consider to be a basic. However they all perform the same job to a greater or lesser degree.
You have to ask yourself what
do I really need in a bench scope & features for my personal EE projects?
Look at your budget, look at what other equipment you could obtain for this outlay as well?
A well-equipped hobbyist lab will benefit from more than just a 2K usd scope imho
Quality cutters, tweezers, pliers, soldering station, lights, microscope are all used daily along with a good DVM, prototyping board, a PC / Lap top software the list goes on.........keep a balanced view it will pay dividends in the long run. Make life easy for yourself having a good scope is great, but also having a smooth running and easy to use and hassle free (‘ish) free lab imho is more preferable that having a single star item.
What are you looking for in a scope, BW, resolution, sample rate, memory depth, probe support, logic analysis, gain accuracy, jitter apps etc.
Oh and cost that’s the big one?
What we would really like and what reality turns out to be are usually not the same.
I use a mixture of Keysight/Rigol/Siglent/Lecroy scopes, each has a place and each is capable of doing the job it has been allocated for.
We are power supply (linear & smps)/mixed signal/high speed serial data chaps, so larger BW/12bit/quality apps are essential for ourselves, at home my scopes are 12bit 200Mhz daily drivers with one 4Ghz 12 bit. On the audio repair bench Rigol & Siglent scopes they are also on the project bench. They perform admirably well for cost and feature set.
My advice would be to think about what you REALLY need to make your projects fun, meaning and insightful, but also think about how many other day to day tools you could also obtain if you didn't need 20G/s & 2Gp of memory!
Also remeber that specilist probes & software arn't always a hack away, and everyone's own level of experinace is different, there are some very clever chaps will special skill sets here who do share their expertise and knowledge.
Also remember that your lab is your domain and know and understand your person limitations and aspirations and what your goals are.
The question posed is very pertinent and very valid.
Prehaps this could be the start of a series of threads (new section Dave?) helping young and upcoming EE's choose quality low cost lab equipment for day to day use, why do you chaps feel?