TL;DR: I'm currently looking at the Siglent SDS2304X but would love to hear opinions about scopes which still meet my must-haves (below) and are around my budget ($2500 US preferred, could go up to ~$3000 US with good reason). Alternatively, is it worth my time to wait to see if new scopes are announced in the first half of this year? I could wait, but then I wouldn't be able to use the scope on my current projects...
It's been some time since I posted on the forum, but I wanted to get your opinions on a new scope purchase I'm looking to make. I'm in the US Southeast (Georgia) and I've got ~$2500-3000 US to put toward a new scope. I would much prefer to stay around $2500, but if there's a really compelling scope which is ~$3000 then I may be able to push the budget. Currently the best/fastest working scope I have (I've got two busted Tek 475A's as project scopes waiting to be repaired...) is a 100 MHz Rigol 1052E. I've made some upgrades to other bits of test gear but I'm looking for a major upgrade to my scope. Intended use is slightly higher-end hobby stuff
. I'm starting to work with some FPGAs and want to be able to probe some of the memory interfaces and other faster signals than I can currently capture.
General requirements (must-haves):
- 4 analog channels
- 16 digital channels
- Serial decode (at least SPI, I2C, CAN, and UART)
- At least 300 MHz analog bandwidth
- Fast enough waveform capture rate to get a "digital phosphor" kind of display (ie. graduated intensity levels)
- Easy screen capture (LAN preferred, USB stick is ok)
- Simple math functions
- Large (at least ~7") display
- Enough memory depth to capture longer signals at full sample rate (maybe 10 Mb+?)
Bonus points:
- Built-in 50 Ohm terminations
- Dedicated trigger input
- Waveform search functionality
- Advanced math (functions on functions) and/or a half-decent FFT
Based on my target budget and after reading around the web and on the forum, I came on to the Siglent SDS2304X as the current frontrunner. It appears to hit all my must-have requirements, is within my budget (with all options and the current 30% off promotion), and at least has the 50 Ohm terminations as a bonus. I've seen the nctnico vs. tautech views on GW Instek vs. Siglent (
), respectively, and I have to say that considering all I've read I still prefer the Siglent for my uses. That said, I'm willing to listen if I end up with a better scope for my needs.
Rigol was my first thought, but they unfortunately don't seem to have a scope that hits all my must-haves in my budget. The MS1000Z series hit most except for the bandwidth (very important), the 2000 series didn't have 4 analog channels (also very important), and the 4000 series was well above my budget for my desired feature set.
I saw the R&S RTB2000 but unfortunately missed the launch deal so it's out of my budget when spec'd to my feature set.
The other big(ger?) players like Tek and Keysight just seem to be out of my budget for my feature set. Looks like they aren't even really trying to compete in this class and price range.
Another option that occurred to me was to just sit on eBay and hope to get a deal on a low-ish end Keysight DSOX3000A (or similar - suggestions welcome)... maybe attempt to hack whatever scope it is up to get into my specs if that's possible... but it's all a bit of a gamble
and I'd be hosed if anything went bad.
I've also heard rumors that new scopes may come out this spring? Maybe just wait a bit?
I'd love to hear any inputs or opinions!