hand held or bench oscilloscope?

[A_Camera]

This thread made me hungry for a new, portable scope so I bought this one:

https://www.banggood.com/Hantek-3in1...r_warehouse=CZ

It arrived yesterday, so I haven't had time to test it completely, but here is what I wrote as review on Banggood, not yet published and don't know if they will publish it or not.

On the plus side: It works. Appears to be good quality because of the casing, the buttons and the overall display quality. Easy to use, quick booting and many useful functions.

On the minus side...
The capacitance meter is a joke. It fails below 1nF, inaccurate between 1nF and around 50nF and EXTREMELY slow in the uF range. 47nF takes forever to measure.
The continuity tester function is useless because the sound is so low II can hardly hear it in a totally quiet room. Volume not adjustable, so I have to open it to see if I can do anything about it through some sort of modification.
Current measurement is also a joke because the fuse is only 200mA and there is no documentation about where that fuse is or how to change it. 10A measurement maximum is low and is unfused. Measuring higher current by mistake means the instrument is bricked.
Only one oscilloscope probe delivered with a two channel scope... This was known, but not good. Instead of two BNC clip probes, should be two for scope and one clip for the AWG.
Scope is good, but the cursors are almost invisible because of the extremely black display background and the intensive grid pattern. Grid can not be turned off and the grid intensity can not be adjusted, only the background light and that does not solve the problem.
Battery was totally discharged, showing ZERO volt on arrival. Charging took around 10-12 hours with the delivered weak, 2A charger.
Delivery incomplete, BNC adapter and English manual was missing, not delivered. Link to manual is to a rar file, should use zip which is standard in Windows environment.

This is the first time I bought something via Banggood, it arrived fast from CZ and I am overall happy with it, even if I don't think it is worth 5 stars. As a complement to my desk scope it is very good, so no regrets. PC interface not tested yet, but it is good that it can be used as a PC scope also, even if I also have a small, 2x50MHz PC scope also.

[Doddy]

A_Camera: The pricing confuses me on the different options, just going for the highest cost option (around $193) I think I'd think twice before spending that vs a bench scope. I think (I'm at work and just glanced at the otherwise-blocked Ad on Banggood on my mobile phone) that this is a similar-ish model to some reviewed on eeVBlog , and from memory the review was a bit mixed... certainly brilliant. But, it sounds like you understand the basic limitations and can work around these. I'd be (casually) curious of your experience of the HMI as this is probably the one area that these portables always frustrates me... but maybe I'm too old and set in my ways.

Be interested in hearing your view on the scope after you've got used to it.

[A_Camera]

A_Camera: The pricing confuses me on the different options, just going for the highest cost option (around $193) I think I'd think twice before spending that vs a bench scope. I think (I'm at work and just glanced at the otherwise-blocked Ad on Banggood on my mobile phone) that this is a similar-ish model to some reviewed on eeVBlog , and from memory the review was a bit mixed... certainly brilliant. But, it sounds like you understand the basic limitations and can work around these. I'd be (casually) curious of your experience of the HMI as this is probably the one area that these portables always frustrates me... but maybe I'm too old and set in my ways.

Be interested in hearing your view on the scope after you've got used to it.

I don't understand why your link is not working. The options I get is different places it can be delivered from, and from China is the cheapest, but I prefer buying things from Europe, this way the tax is paid and I get it quicker. Anyway, looking at it for a UK delivery, I get the same price, 172 USD https://uk.banggood.com/Hantek-3in1-...r_warehouse=UK

I think the unit works well, but of course, for such cheap price you can't expect everything to be perfect, we can always wish for more. Never the less, as a hand held, portable, battery driven instrument, or as one which would be rarely used it is excellent.

[Muzzer]

I'd be interested to see how you get on with this DVM-style meter. I have one of the DS203 things and although it's a neat piece of kit, it takes a lot of fiddling to set up / change the myriad settings like vertical, timebase, trigger etc. A lot more portable than the Siglent SDS1102 which I am otherwise very happy with.

[Doddy]

Almost bought one there, just to play with - £133 UK... then noticed a Hantek scope on the "buyers also bought..." section for about £50 more. That is the real issue here - do you want portable - at the cost of usability, or bench - at the cost of physical space (and power). There's a case for both though I think I need a beer or two to persuade me to buy another scope.

[Muzzer]

Yes, I suspect that's what happened here, causing the DS203 to turn up!