Pico SXRTO opinions?

[moore]

So PicoTech has a couple of models of a "sampler extended real time oscilloscope", see here: https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/9400/sxrto-sampler-extended-real-time-ghz-oscilloscope

I recognize that for a lot of T&M applications this isn't much use vs a true real time scope.  But it just might fit my use case - need high BW and have a pulsed kHz source that needs to be triggered on and measured.  I've never considered a conventional sampling scope because I would need a sync to trigger on, and even then it would take minutes to build up a waveform. 

Anyway, curious for opinions on this.

[DaJMasta]

Sampling scopes meet a lot more of the use cases for high bandwidth scopes (eye diagrams, jitter analysis, etc.) because they were going to be building up intensity or color graded diagrams and statistical analyses from many acquisitions anyways, but the big benefit here and otherwise is price.  Only your frontend needs to operate at the full rated bandwidth, and the price here reflects that - only $20k USD for a 4 channel, 16GHz bandwidth scope is only just a realistic price for a similar realtime scope on the used market, and is probably 1/4 to 1/5 the price of your cheapest realtime options on the new market.

[moore]

I have a 16GHz RT scope, but it breaks once a year and costs $5-$10k and a month to repair each time.  So I am less enthusiastic about the used market than I used to be, at least for high BW, high waveform rate scopes.  One of the repair shops said such performance scopes tend to get built right at the bleeding edge of spec and often fail due to overheating after a few years.

If I had the $$ for sure I'd just get a new one and extended warranty and not stress about any of this.

Anyway, I thought this Pico model was an interesting compromise between sampling and RT.