Question 1

What is the battery life like? does it  use usb charging?

Accepted Answer

It does charge through the USB port. I don't have a specific battery time, but I would rate the battery life as good.

Question 2

What is the more realistic bandwidth with reasonable accuracy, e.g. +/- 5% or better?

Accepted Answer

+/- 5% is probably asking a lot. But I found it to do maybe +/- 10% in many tests (except at 200 mV/div where mine seems to have a vertical gain error quite a bit more than that). Frequency-wise, the answer is basically around 20 or 30 MHz for sinewaves and works well at  timebases of 100ns/div or longer. At a timebase of faster than 100ns/div, it appears to enter a software-assisted/based triggering/display mode that struggles with some waveforms. At 100ns/div or longer, it works very nicely (although it will alias if you are on a timebase setting that results in more cycles than the 320 width display will support).  So I would say 20 or 30 MHz sinewaves (maybe 1 to 5 MHz for digital waveforms that have lots of harmonics if you want sharp edge displays).  If you push it, and have a pure sinewave signal, you can get it to show stuff up to about 125 MHz before aliasing starts at the 6ns/div setting, but the vertical readout will be no-where near 5% accuracy.

Question 3

Is it easy for a newbie to use vs something like nscope  ?

Accepted Answer

I am not really a Newbie since I have been a "Ham" radio operator since the 1950s, but I have found this unit quite easy to use.  The controls are very self explanatory and, although sometimes the manual is a little confusing, if one takes their time reading it they will get the answe in using the equipment.  I like mine and use it frequently.

Question 4

What is max. freq. of circuits this scope provides useful/predictable results? 200khz? 400khz? some reviews say >that is squirrely.

Accepted Answer

It works very well up to about 20 or 30 MHz. Above that, you'd be using a timebase setting below 100ns/div and it goes into a software-based triggering/display mode and can have a few issues.  Limited memory depth means that it will alias, depending on input frequency and timebase setting. For example, at 100ns/div, it aliased for input signal components above 31.25 MHz in my tests. At 10us/div it aliases above 1.25 MHz. Etc.  BUT - if you just hit the "Auto" button, it quickly and accurately showed just about anything I threw at it :-)   Good little scope !

Handheld Digital Mini Oscilloscope 5012h Portable Professional Oscilloscope Kit with 100mhz Bandwidth 500MS/s Sampling Rate 2.4'' TFT LCD Display

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