wow, 134 pages of posts to a topic started almost 3 years ago. impressive.
with a wide range of opinions and perspectives, I thought I'd add mine.
The DS1054 is a low end oscilloscope. There's no denying that. I mean, seriously: $399?!
My degree is in electronic engineering from a few decades back. Needless to say, the magic of the DS1054 back then would have cost probably tens of thousands of dollars. Times change, eh?
I came to the eevblog some time ago looking for a good hobbyist oscilloscope. These days I work as a pure software engineer, but my heart is still in electronics. I was really happy to find Dave's review of the DS1054. That sealed my decision on the DS1054.
There are certainly many better, more feature packed, higher bandwidth, better this-n-that oscilloscopes. But for me, for hacking on the weekend - for the price - I really like my DS1054.
If you've come here with a similar situation, I say go for the DS1054. If you are a professional and the company has an unlimited budget, then buy something better, for sure.
But for a "basic" oscilloscope (I mean seriously, I started out with a dual trace analog tek many years ago that worked just fine, this one is awesome).... the DS1054 can't be beat, yes, even with the occasional quirks.
The only thing I don't like? The fan. They could have spent just a few bucks more and included a silent fan. Feature requests? Well, the screen is somewhat small. An HDMI connector would be really awesome.
Just another opinion fwiw.