I watched the video, haven't read this whole thread, but I think it's an interesting proposition.
For a friend setting up his lab for 1kEUR a year back, obviously fitting in a 800euro scope isn't going to work. So instead, I recommended him a Rigol 1054Z. I got the quite similar 1074Z-S for about 700euro in 2014 IIRC..
The question is, what features make a scope overkill?
- >=100MHz BW?
- >=1MPts of memory?
- intensity graded display and/or >1k wfm/s?
- >= 2 analog channels?
- mixed signal scope?
- serial decode/triggering in software or even hardware?
- hi-res mode?
- high resolution ADC/low noise frontend?
To be honest.. I don't think a lot of hobbyists really need all of this. Well maybe the 4ch analog channels is the one exception.. but other than that.
Bandwidth: what signals are you going to measure? Maybe harmonics of digital signals, e.g. signal integrity of digital buses, at best? But is a hobbyist going to design the next-gen high speed serial bus standard? Or route SQI/HyperRAM microcontroller/FPGA boards every day?
Memory depth: anything in kpts range is limiting.. but at some point (I'd say around Mpts) the scope can capture such long signals that it's almost impractical to analyze manually on a small screen with a limited user interface. My PC has far more controls and I can use scripts if need be. Similarly, I wouldn't recommended upgrading scope for MSO functions. Just get a logic analyzer instead IMO.
Anything acquisition related: intensity grading, update rate, hi-res, low noise.. Sure this is all nice and
better. It may also catch the very hard to trace bug in your design. But what projects are you working on? Something for fun to keep you busy, or something that is on-par with your professional work?
So I do wonder at what level a typical hobbyist is working at. Sure you have a mix people, e.g. professional engineers that work on a whole range of things (from FPGAs to IoT to PSU stuff). Those projects will be quite different. But perhaps also makers that want to test their gadgets or test signals on their drone. But then to summarize: I think a majority will spend time on debugging a MCU board, test some power supplies (sequencing, overshoot, ripple), look at some LF analog signals (<=8MHz), check if a crystal oscillator is running.. and maybe check some signal buses (I2C, SPI) for signal levels and perhaps edges.
If stuff is getting more crazy, like digital protocols, there are better tools to intensely work with than a scope.
I personally think that, thanks to the familiar asian vendors,
cheap oscilloscopes have outpaced the speed at which a typical hobbyists would work with. Designs with 50MHz+ digital signals aren't so straight forward. Or PCBs that need to process sub-mV signals carefully. A scope that has more BW, memory, features and knobs is nice but to some degree more gadget-y IMO.
Now don't get me wrong.. I am amazed at the bang/buck available. It seems like 300-400$ is the threshold for which I would consider getting a new scope. It gets you 4ch, 50-100MHz, serial decode, advanced triggers, thousands of waveforms/second, hi-res mode, and USB/ethernet connections. That MSO5000 more than doubles on some specs, so that makes it seem more than worth it.
In terms of future proofing.. I don't know. My Rigol 4ch model was also around 800EUR, which seems like a neat price point at which hobbyists are still willing to pay for a bang/buck scope. But don't forget that technology will always move forward fast. Rigol recently released those HDO scopes for a bit more money with a focus on analog while dropping some (read: quite a bit) of the tailoring towards digital designs. Well, when will we see that merge into a general purpose analog/digital scope that say has a 4ch 4-8GS/s 10/12-bit ADC, hundreds of MPts of memory, hundred-k's of wfms/s, for <1k$ (minus inflation)? I bet it's going to happen in 5-10 years time. It's a logical progression of capitalism where competition is going to catch up, so in order to keep retail prices up they need to innovate.
In 30 years time we probably will have affordable 1GHz 8ch scopes with 16-bit ADCs and an optional brain-machine interface so that we can see more than 30fps worth of display data visualized in more than 3 dimensions. So much for "lasting a lifetime"
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