Rigol DS1054Z Digital Oscilloscope 50 MHz DSO 4 Channels

I'm using this to analyze signals in some microcontroller circuits (Arduino AVR based) for a book I'm writing. For this the I2C, SPI, and RS232 trigger and decode features were important as well as many of the measurement features. The DS1054 has more than adequate bandwidth, sampling rate (even with all 4 channels running), and triggering.I'm 70 and retired Electrical Engineer. I used Tektronix Analog scopes from 1966 to the early 1980's. Actually worked at Tektronix. Then after about 15 years of no scope use I used Tektronix and Agilent scopes until I retired.This Rigol is actually the best scope I've ever used, with few flaws. Everything has been easy to use and the controls are responsive if you don't yank them around too fast. That I'd consider a design flaw. Vertical amplitude seems to hit its limits too soon so I can't zoom into a waveform as much as I'd want for general use, but it's fine for the digital signals I'm particularly interested in. The weakest part seems to be the probes, which are poor quality.I'll add to this review later if it fails me in any way, but the out of the box experience (and I started using it immediately) has been great.Added after 6 months -- it still works great. Only flaws to me are lack of external trigger input (not uncommon) so an input channel has to be wasted for a trigger signal. And It would be much easier to use if each vertical channel had its own set of controls. Also a common deficiency in the low priced end. I've used probably all of the data analysis features by now, except for some of the triggering modes, it's got a mammoth feature set. They've all worked.Visit the Rigol website and download the user manual. It's the only way you will ever get full value out of this scope.Added about 1.5 years after purchase: I have had the USB memory interface hang as well as the whole scope hang. Infrequent, but annoying. The slow interface gets frustrating at times, but the money saved over a top-brand scope is certainly worth it for a hobbyist. If I were still working, I'd certainly ask for something better. I could probably use a refresher on the features because most are buried deep under menus and are easy to forget and even find.

An excellent product, great scope for beginners and home-workshop types who want pro-class features without spending thousands. Bright, readable screen (though the fonts might be a tad small for some eyes), good color coding of onscreen info to match color coded input jacks and probes. Persistence shading feature helps to visualize complex signals, spot glitches and observe trends. Very powerful measurement and analysis tools, for measuring peak/rms voltage, frequency, pulse width, any many other characteristics of a signal. Hardware frequency counter for accurate frequency measurement even if the signal isn't entirely visualized onscreen. Digital logic-analyzer functions including protocol decoders (I2C, SPI, RS232) and a variety of digital trigger options are included with the base firmware, so no real need to riglol it, unless you want the 100MHz bandwidth. 24MSa memory seems to be stock now as well, which is a huge amount of memory for an instrument in this class, and very handy for zooming in on details of a waveform or capturing/decoding bursts of digital data. Good quality PDF manual is readily available online, and there are many videos that will teach beginners how to use this scope. My only minor complaints are that the rotary encoders are a little mushy and occasionally jump a step when pressed to enter a value, and there seem to be some tiny DC offset issues when multiple channels are used, that are not completely corrected by the auto-calibration. All in all, though, a great value.

I've only had it a few hours, but so far its great. I've been using Tek and Agilent scopes at work for years, this Rigol seems just as capable, maybe even more so, at a fraction of the cost. It took me a little while to find everything, but it all seems to be there. Meaurement functions are easier to get to than on any other scope I have used. It has plenty of triggering options. What Tek calls "zoom" is under the horizontal menu and labelled "delay". Every function I thought to look for was there somewhere, as well as a few I've never seen on a scope. One nice surprise was the Trigger Out function on the rear connector. I've used this in the past to use a scope to do a fairly complex trigger sequence and then trigger a separate frequency counter to measure the frequency of a short burst. I doubt I'll ever use it on this scope (its for home/hobby use) but its nice to know its there if I need it. One thing to note: the scope comes with a bunch of optional features enabled in time-limited demo mode. After 35 hours of use, they will be disabled. However, if you look around a bit you should be able to find how to unlock these premium features permanently. Even without the optional features this is a great scope for the money. With them its an unbeatable deal.BTW...the description says "Comes with 2 (RP2200 double passive probe)", so I thought it only included 2 probes. But what they apparently mean by "double" is that there are two probes in each package (and 2 packages)...so 4 probes total, as one would expect with a 4 ch scope.