All bench scopes have 1/2/5 sequences in all the ranges, like a dozen ranges total.
So 1mV/Div, 2mV, 5mV, 10mV, 20mV, 50mV, 100mV, 200mV, 500mV, 1V, 2V, 5V, 10V/div
How many does the AD2 have?
And what overloads can it handle?
It has: 100uV, 200uV, 500uV, 1mV, 2mV, 5mV, 10mV, 20mV, 50mV, 100mV, 200mV, 500mV, 1V, 2V, 5V.
Or you can just type in any number you want, it seems it accepts any scale (may be it does combination of hw/sw scaling). Or use mouse wheel on right side to change vertical of active channel. Or use mouse wheel on the range selector.
Concerning overload, I'm not sure what you mean. It accepts +-25V (don't measure mains with it). As for recovery from overload I dunno, never tested it.
I'd say the most annoying thing for me is lack of AC coupling. The coupling jumper is on BNC adapter, but I don't use it because 1) I don't need it 2) I don't want to have common ground, I want differential input.
Differential input is the AD(2) inputs only real feature. To make things less confusing it only has two gain settings:
https://reference.digilentinc.com/reference/instrumentation/analog-discovery-2/reference-manual
They have full scale ranges of -28.6V to 30V and -2.6V to 2.7V, just two gains for the front end. It can use the higher bit width of the ADC to add some more gain, but at the cost of resolution.
A scope on the flip side might have a dozen or more gain settings for the front end, and adjustable "vernier" reference voltages to adjust the vertical scale in much finer steps. Also with a higher sample rate that can be accumulated or filtered down to improve resolution, and from that a "regular" scope will actually have more resolution than the AD(2) in some settings. But just on the full scale range you would be looking at something such as -40V to 40V down to -4mV to 4mV entirely from the analog front end.
To discus the Analog Discovery as if it were only a scope makes no sense, It is a package of electronic test gear including
Two-channel arbitrary function generator (±5V, 14-bit, 100MS/s, 12MHz+ bandwidth - with the Analog Discovery BNC Adapter Board)
Stereo audio amplifier to drive external headphones or speakers with replicated AWG signals
16-channel digital logic analyzer (3.3V CMOS and 1.8V or 5V tolerant, 100MS/s)
Digital Bus Analyzers (SPI, I²C, UART, Parallel)
16-channel pattern generator (3.3V CMOS, 100MS/s)
16-channel virtual digital I/O including buttons, switches, and LEDs – perfect for logic training applications
Two input/output digital trigger signals for linking multiple instruments (3.3V CMOS)
Single channel voltmeter (AC, DC, ±25V)
Network Analyzer – Bode, Nyquist, Nichols transfer diagrams of a circuit. Range: 1Hz to 10MHz
Spectrum Analyzer – power spectrum and spectral measurements (noise floor, SFDR, SNR, THD, etc.)
Data Logger - Exportable data and plot functionality
Impedance Analyzer - Capacitive and Inductive Elements
Protocol Analyzer - SPI, I2C, UART, and CAN
Two programmable power supplies (0…+5V , 0…-5V).
Anyone who bought it as a scope alone would surely be missing it's purpose.