A few months back I had the opportunity to try several scopes, including a R&S RTB2K
(very swift response from R&S Denmark, even though I’m a one-man company and only need 1 scope)
The RTB2K was considered only due to the COM4 bundle, otherwise it was to expensive, for me at least.
I also tried a Rigol MSO5000 and a Keysight MSOX3024T
I quickly ruled out the Rigol, due to the very dark screen and the button layout, which I find unintuitive, and the Keysight was turned down due to pricing (and serial decodes cost almost as much as the scope itself)
The RTB2K was pleasant to use, but also had some issues
Screen
- Large, Hi-res, crisp and bright (one of the best I seen)
- Glossy screen, which I don’t like as there are to much reflection (can be solved with a matte screen protector)
Probes
- Very poor, look like some thing left over from Hameg. The RTB2K deserves something better (and without the x1/x10 switch)
- The BNC doesn’t have automatic recognition of 10x probes (the ring around the BNC is missing)
I do have some very nice Tek and HP probes and as the BNC itself is recessed into the front so some Agilent probes can’t be used. As I only use x10 probes or Coax, it’s annoying to manually switch between x10 and x1
Buttons
- Nice layout, though I prefer individual controls for each vertical channel
- Nice with color coding and adjustable light level
Timebase
- RTB2K uses 1-2-5 scheme, which is standard. But below 200ns, it switches between 10ns, 20ns, 40ns 80 ns & 200ns. I can’t find the explanation for this
So for now I’m still using my trusty old HP 54645D (running +20 years) and a ScanaQuad for bus decoding
Still looking for a replacement…