This question might raise some eyebrows, but well, life is strange
It just so happened that I got interested in electronics since childhood despite the fact that I've been visually impaired since birth.
Ok, I got my reality check done and did not become an electronics engineer; I became a programmer instead, which is actually not a weird profession for a seriously near-sighted person because software development is one of those rare jobs that lets you enlarge your "work objects".
So, as a hobbyist who tinkers with Arduinos and sensors and does some easy repairs for friends from time to time, I would like to have a solid and portable scope that would let me do all the basic analog and digital stuff.
Some years ago I made a mistake and bought a cheap USB scope from AliExpress. It was ok-ish, but it sometimes behaved unpredictably and I could not rely on it. Sometimes I got confused not seeing the expected signal and then I hard-restarted the scope, and the signal was there! Also, the software felt clumsy to use, requiring too much clicking around to focus on signals, when (IMHO) it could have been implemented as an intuitive and simple mouse zoom & pan instead. Also, as I don't work on electronics projects as often as I would like to, I found that I have to relearn all the quirks every time I use the scope.
So, let's get to my wishlist:
- there must be a way to control the device from a computer screen because that's the only way I can get texts large enough for my eyes. I know Rigols are the king of budget scopes, but I would need one that can send the display in real-time to my computer and, ideally, also be controlled from a computer. With a desktop scope, I would be overpaying for the display which might be of little use to me, unless I use magnifying glasses with it, which could get very inconvenient. However, I understand that Rigol scopes are far ahead in terms of features per $ and it might be a totally bad financial decision to buy a USB scope at all.
- basic digital protocol decoding. I think I don't need a full MSO input, I could live with digital decoding on the analog scopes. My current cheap scope has that option and it kinda works, at least I've used it for UART.
- reliable and intuitive to use - it should be easy to catch up even after prolonged periods of not using it. It's bad when your tool starts lying to you when you forget that it has some special quirk so you have to restart it to use some function immediately.
- price - I think a reliable basic scope should not cost more than 200 EUR / USD. Unfortunately, looking at the basic USB scopes from reliable brands, my options are very limited for that price. I can get only Picoscope 2204A for 140 EUR. Is it worth it? Or should I aim higher? 2205A - 230 EUR. Analog Discovery 2 Pro bundle - 400 EUR.
Analog Discovery 3 Pro bundle - 310 EUR. Rigol DHO802 - 415 EUR. Ouch, it's getting expensive, I really don't want to go higher than that.
Thanks for reading this long text and I'll really appreciate any suggestions and ideas.