AmScope T490B Compound Trinocular Microscope, 40X-2000X Magnification, Halogen Light, Abbe Condenser, 2-Layer Mechanical Stage, High-Resolution Optics, Awarded No. 6 Among The Top 10 Microscopes 2016

As a retired high school biology teacher I am indulging in my lifelong passion for interacting with the living world by exploring local pond micro-organisms. Hence, my purchase of this scope. I had, admittedly, an inauspicious start. About 15 minutes into its first use, the illumination system failed. I tried everything - switching to the supplied replacement bulb, testing both bulbs for continuity, replacing the fuse, checking source voltage, etc. It was a serious disappointment! But, hey, stuff happens. The situation quickly improved. I can only say wonderful things about the tech support at AmScope. It was all done by email. My first email got a very quick and courteous response suggesting a few things to check which I did to no avail. Josiah from tech support then immediately sent out a replacement illumination base which installed easily and has functioned perfectly for a number of hours since. Kudos to AmScope support! Now, to the microscope itself. From college through 50 years of teaching I have used microscopes ranging from cheap to very high end. I am impressed with how close a microscope at this price point comes to matching performance of far more expensive instruments. The base, stage, turret, and eyepiece mount are solidly built and stable. There is no vibration in the image when changing focus or moving the slide. All lighting adjustments are easy to perform. The lamp itself has a dimmer control and the substage Abbe condenser moves smoothly. I still have to physically look for the diaphragm adjustment arm on occasion - something I should be able to do by feel, but that's a minor problem. The coarse and fine focus work smoothly with no slippage and no backlash when changing up and down focus. (There is also an adjustment for level of friction in the focusing mechanism.) The moving stage and its controls for x-y axis movement of the slide is a pleasure to use (particularly on swimming protists at higher magnifications!). Movement is smooth and precise on both axes and changing directions is immediate with no slipping at the control knobs. Most important - the optics. There are 4 objectives included (4x, 10x, 40x, and 100x) plus a pair of 10x and 20x eyepieces. I have not used the 100x oil immersion objective since it has limited utility for my purposes. I have made use, however, of the other three objectives with both sets of eyepieces. All combinations show even brightness across the field of view (if substage illumination is correctly set), no focus distortion (coma) at the edge of the field, and no color distortion. In short, excellent optics. Also notable: an object in focus and in the center of view at low magnification appears in the center of view when higher power objectives are moved into place and only minor focus adjustments are necessary at each change. I also cannot comment on the vertical viewing port since I have not attempted photography but look forward to trying it out in the near future. In sum, I'm thrilled that such a good instrument could be had at this low price. Spending more, even a lot more, would only produce diminishing returns.

The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. In terms of bang for the buck, this may be the best techie man toy ever. PROS Impressive presentation. It's huge, at 14-1/2 inches tall without a camera and almost 20 inches tall with a compact digital camera on the trinocular port. It would be a little taller with an SLR/DSLR camera. Well constructed with a really solid feel to the whole thing. Knobs that move, such as the focusing knobs, the condenser positioning knob, and the stage positioning knobs, all move smoothly. The optics are quite good. Achromatic (and not planar), obviously, at this price point. But certainly good enough for students and hobbyists like me. This is no toy in the cheap sense of the word. This is a serious instrument. Overall, a great value at the $380 I paid this T490B-DK kit. (Which is the T490B microscope bundled with its optional DK-DRY100 darkfield condenser). I recommend you save yourself $90 by buying the T490B without the darkfield condenser. You can add the condenser at any time. EDUCATION Ideal for homeschooling. As an 8-10 year old child circa 1950, I was given a cheap chemistry set and a toy microscope. I was never able to do anything with the chemistry set and the microscope was a useless piece of junk. Great idea. Encourage your kids to develop an interest in science by giving them scientific toys that do nothing but frustrate them. If you're lucky enough to have a child who's interested in science, the smartest thing you can do for them would be to buy them this microscope and a few (2-4) boxes of prepared slides. The benefit is not just the "discovery adventure" from getting really good views of really small things. You put your child down in front of a device of this size and sophistication and the message to the child is clear: "I am taking both you and your educations seriously. Very seriously." And it will also entertain you and impress your friends. CONS (remarkably few, and they're nits) The user's guide is lame, to put it charitably. The good news: what little assembly is required is reasonably obvious after looking at the pictures and I had no real trouble cobbling it together. If you do have any questions, AmScope has really good phone and website chat support. The eyepieces have limited eye relief. So, if you wear glasses, you might have an issue. I'm extremely nearsighted, but I just take my glasses off and let the microscope's focusing optics compensate for my vision. If that isn't going to work for you, meaning you will have to wear your glasses, your eyes will be too far from the eyepieces to see the entire image at one time. I.e., you'll need to move your head around to scan the entire image. (The eye relief is the maximum distance your eye can be from the eyepiece and still see the entire image the device is forming.) ASSEMBLY SUGGESTION There is an opening in the top of the binocular head for the camera mount tube. This opening has a plug in it you remove to install the tube. But there is no plug for the tube itself. So, if you don't have a camera to go on the tube, don't install the tube at this time or you'll just have a path for dust to enter the binocular head. DARKFIELD MICROSCOPY Darkfield microscopy is really cool stuff. If this topic is new to you (as it was to me), now would be a good time to check out the Wikipedia article. Although I purchased the darkfield condenser with this microscope, I haven't had much experience with it yet. Darkfield is really intended for use with unstained specimens, and as I only have prepared slides all of my specimens have been stained. The darkfield views I'm getting are pretty dim, and my guess is that the stain is absorbing much of the light that would otherwise be scattered by the unstained specimens. I don't know how this will work out in the long run, but if I learn anything interesting I'll update this review. BOTTOM LINE Great bang for the buck. Really cool man toy. Wonderful child educational tool. Highly Recommended !

Great scope! I also bought the Omax 9mp camera to use with it (through my Mac laptop and supplied Troup Lite app) and I'm getting some terrific photos. It's a waste of money buying a higher res camera for this work. Originally I was going to buy a special photo eyepiece for my Canon SLR, but I'm glad I went the way I did. Anyway...I'm going to put an LED lamp in place of the halogen (which gets hot, and will dry your wet samples). I've been using two gooseneck LED lights to include top lighting (like with a dissecting microscope)...getting really nice photos with three-dimensionality this way. Great scope for the money, and works as well as my old Olympus (which cost 6k at the time). I particularly enjoy the the Siedentoph head, much easier to get real binocular image with this than with the Omax scope I had to return (because of this issue). It's nice that quality scopes are so affordable these days. p.s....I'm going to get a 60x objective to use in place of the supplied 100x oil immersion objective. Sharing my photo of Black Oak pollen, apx diameter is 0.04mm (used sub-stage halogen and two top LED sources (one on each side) can vary illum output of each to enhance 3D effect). My three-way cheapo gooseneck LED lights are better than the single brightness unit I never use now. Hope this helps.

Zu meiner Freude kam das Mikroskop schnell und pünktlich bei mir an, leider kam die Ernüchterung beim Auspacken. Der Dunkelfeld-Kondensor war nicht sorgfältig bzw. einzeln verpackt, sondern in ein nicht dafür vorgesehenes Fach, der Mikrosopverpackung hineingedrückt, dadurch ist vermutlich die Schraube abgebrochen. Anfänglich wollte ich nur den Kondensor umtauschen und habe aber dann feststellen müssen, dass die mitgelieferten Teile nicht der Bildbeschreibung entsprachen und der Kondensor auch nicht in die Mikroskophalterung passt. Ich kann es nicht behaupten, jedoch hatte ich schon den Eindruck, dass die Teile nicht orginal verpackt waren. Bisher war ich immer sehr zufrieden mit meinen Bestellungen bei Amazon und deshalb starte ich noch einen zweiten Versuch, indem ich die Sendung zurückschicke und nochmal neu bestelle. Ich hoffe, dass dann alles funktioniert und ich aus zwei Sternen fünf Sterne machen - und über ein tolles Mikroskop berichten kann. Fortsetzung folgt! Nun habe ich zum 2-ten mal bestellt, innerhalb von zwei Tagen, war auch schon das neue Mikroskop da! Sehr zu meiner Freude, war die Abwicklung unkompliziert und reibungslos. Die Lieferung war vollständig, ohne jede Beanstandung! Preis-Leistung TOP! Vielen Dank

Can even see red blood cells, nice and sharp without a dark field condenser if you close the diagram a bit. I'm very satisfied with this purchase.

Me faltó en mi paquete el objetivo 100x, el aceite de inmersión y los fusibles, estoy muy descontento

Ho acquistato il microscopio dopo una breve ricerca online, sembrava un buon compromesso. Lo è sicuramente. La meccanica è precisa, messa a fuoco e spostamenti del tavolo portaoggetti sono morbide e fluide. L'ottica piu' che buona per il costo dello strumento, quasi irrisorio. Il microscopio arriva in una scatola di polistirolo, forse l'unica pecca è la mancanza di una cassa con alloggio per i vari accessori (2 paia di oculari, prolunga per connessione a PC, fusibili, filtri, olio, lampadina di ricambio). Ha comunque un copristrumento in plastica che è efficace per tenere lontana la polvere. Dopo un paio di settimane di prove sono pienamente soddisfatto del funzionamento. E' vero che la lampada potrebbe essere piu' luminosa, ma ho lavorato con facilità a 2000x (obiettivo ad immersione) senza problemi. Non posso dire nulla dell'attacco PC perché non ho avuto modo di provarlo, per ora ho fatto qualche foto in proiezione oculare con un cellulare, come si vede dagli attachments la risoluzione è ottima. La prima foto è fatta a 800x, la seconda a 2000x in immersione. Assolutamente consigliabile per chi vuole divertirsi con la microbiologia.

Perfecto