Actually, this is not a full review. For a full review check out Dave Jones’s review here or here. What this is, is my first impressions – particularly the negative ones.
I only give negative feedback!
Now, the Rigol is a really nice oscilloscope with a ton of features. Unfortunately the scope has a rubbish user-interface, and could be even better with just a few simple changes.
Here is a short list of the most annoying ones, but really, watch the video!
- Probe cables are way too stiff.
- Two of the 4 traces on the screen are blue – very similar blue.
- Sluggish performance when 4 traces are shown.
- Fan noise is a bit on the high side.
- Turning channels on and off is too complicated.
- The “Enter” button on the rotary encoder is too sensitive. We need detents/click stops on the rotary encoder.
I also give some positive feedback!
The scope may work up to about 200 MHz, if you can live with the frequency roll-off. Here is a video, and a table of amplitude corrections that I made.
And finally the list of correction factors I promised to deliver:
Drawn as a graph throws some light on this behaviour – it looks like an active filter with a massive side-lobe, or maybe something where the filter-inductor has massive stray capacitance.
