I am going to be making a short list of DSO/MSOs for purchase at work. Basically I am comparing 4 channel 200Mhz models, and require serial and SPI triggering and decoding. Built in wavegen is a plus. MSO is a plus. Deep memory is a requirement.
Current Keysight have specials on the 2000, 3000, 3000T and 4000 series for all feature unlocks, and I must say, they look great, especially that 12 inch screen on the 4000, but might not fit on my desk! I also think the 3000T looks pretty darn awesome. Is it worth it? Will a 2000 do?
I have had a quick look around and have seen a little about the Tek, and saw Dave's review of the R&S. I am looking for a professional tool (or two), and figure I can budget for up to about AUD10K if I can make the business case, but anything I save on the scope, can probably go into a power supply or two. Anyone got any suggestions or advice?
AU$10k is around US$7k, right? Any reason you only considered Keysight, Tek and R&S and not LeCroy?
Keysight's DSOX2000A is a good low end scope but functionality-wise its very limited. The 3000 Series is good and the DSOX3kT is nice but you really pay over the odds for it. The DSOX4kA is essentially a DSOX3kT with a larger screen. All these scopes suffer from a small sample memory due to a limitation with Keysight's MegaZoom ASIC. The DSOX Series is pretty much designed around a high waveform update rate with everything else secondary. Basic stuff like VGA or network port are expensive options. We also had some excessive noise issues some of our DSOX4kA scopes. They are good scopes but especially the higher bandwidth models are excessively priced for what you get, and I really hope that Keysight will come out with a new design in the near future.
As to Tek, well, unless you really need a scope with a built-in spectrum analyzer with mediocre specs forget about Tek. They haven't produced anything really remarkable (with the exception of the 70kSX maybe) since the days of analog scopes, their scopes are slow (sometimes pathetically so), pretty expensive, plus in my experience their support has taken a nose dive as well (but then it's a Danaher company, so what do you expect?). You'd be pretty much paying for the name only, and those days from what I see most of their customers are either in the edu segment or legacy customers who buy Tek just because they always did or have not much other choice.
For R&S you'd be looking at the RTM2000 which is quite a step up from the low end
Hameg R&S 'Value Instruments' stuff which itself is already quite good. The RTM2000 is very nice scope, although a bit pricey (as are the options) and the waveform update rate is a bit on the low side. But it has a nice XGA screen with a good UI, and it's very silent. R&S support is also very good.
Having said that, in that price range you should really have a look at the LeCroy WaveSurfer 3000 Series as well:
http://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/pdf/wavesurfer-3000-datasheet.pdfIt's in a similar performance class as the Keysight DSOX3kT but offers much larger sample memory (10M vs 4M), a larger screen with higher resolution, 1Mpts FFT, a really great UI (MAUI), plus a wide range of other advantages including some functions that usually are only found in higher class scopes. And it costs a lot less than the Keysight. In addition, they have very good support (all scopes are fully supported for 7 years after end of production, and are repaired for many years after that; they still repair 9300 Series scopes which ended in '98 or so).
At the moment in that class the best bang for the buck is the WaveSurfer 3000. At the moment there's a promo which includes all options (except MSO), and they are pretty flexible re. price.
I'd also strongly recommend to not just buy by recommendations but to try and get some loaner/demo scopes instead. $7k is a lot of money, and you want to make sure that this investment goes toward a tool you can work with, and you can only see this if trying out the scope in your typical scenarios.