The R&S HMO1000 & HMO1200 series have a much better construction quality than most tipical cheap scopes, just take a look to Dave's tear down video of Siglent and new cheap GW Insteak lines and you can see what i mean.
Rigol is one or more step ahead the latters and a step behind bottom line R&S.
I do not even mention Hantek because is the king of the cr*ap, to say the least.
The R&S strong points are UI architecture, panel commands responsivity, FFT resolution & usability, fast math and HW decoder for serial protocols.
The bad point are screen size,
8 channel LA and ... the
price !
Here the story abruptly ends for most money sensitive hobbiest.
If you are a "simple" end user you can save yourself to call them, they did not give you any substantial discount, if not any attention as soon as you declare to be an hobbiest interested to their bottom line products, no sh*t !
If you are an end user with some engagement with professional market vendors you can try to play that card, but highly doubt that you will get all SW options for free
Let's take the HMO1212, here in EU goes for :
- base unit 1100 E plus taxes
- I2C/UART/SPI decoding options 300 E plus taxes
- 200Mhz BW upgrade 300 E plus taxes
- 8 ch LA options 300 E plus taxes
so we have :
1700 * 1.21 (average EU vat) =
2057 Euro for 200Mhz DSO
2000 * 1.21 (average EU vat) =
2400 Euro for 200Mhz
8ch LAMSO
If we compare it to Rigol DS2072A / MSO2072A models fully expanded for free we have a 2X factor and Rigol MSO comes with 16ch LA against 8ch R&S solution.
If you need serial protocol HW decoding and/or a serious FFT function and/or fast math then R&S becomes a winner, otherwise go for Rigol, at least until the full options free upgrade works.
Your first scope ... i guess you do not need any of above features, if positive and if you are not a reach men go for DS1054Z (caution, good sight required) or DS2072A plus SDG2042X signal generator.
If you are a reach men, call R&S, TEK or Keysight and declare in advance that you have some KiloBucks / KiloEuro that are willing to leave your pocket for their bottom line products, they maybe will give some attentions.
Just my 2 cents.