AmScope T490B-DK Compound Trinocular Microscope, WF10x and WF20x Eyepieces, 40X-2000X Magnification, Brightfield/Darkfield, Halogen Illumination, Abbe Condenser, Double-Layer Mechanical Stage, Sliding Head, High-Resolution Optics

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.

I am a student who purchased this microscope to learn more on my own instead of relying on school labs that are typically rushed, feeling like a factory assembly line with massive students in queue. I like to observe things at length without time constraints - that is part of my learning personality. This microscope is a beast! A solid piece of equipment! It feels exactly like a lab microscope. It arrived packaged with a few things like a plastic cover to store it from dust, adapter for monocular, and color filters. Everything feels solid from the focusing knob, fine-focus knob, to the articulating stage. I love that you can articulate the stereo eyepiece and that it is not fixed like some microscopes. I have read that the optical lenses are made by the same company that makes lenses for Leica, Olympus, and other brand names in the microscope arena. The build of this microscope and lens feel superb! The ability to attach a video camera/camera via the monocular port is an awesome feature. Canon cameras can attach without the current adapter if you purchase a Canon specific adapter by Amscope, which cost around $90. My major dislike is the lighting. It works ok, but I personally find it not bright enough. I also found that the higher resolution I want to go, the light becomes duller, though still functional. The lighting is classic halogen, not LED, but I knew that when purchasing. Only a month afterwards did I have an opportunity to use an LED microscope. Boy, that lighting will spoil you. The LED lighting is super bright, producing a pleasant viewing experience (makes for better microscope pictures too). The super power efficient LED lasts for a long time with no heat build-up like a halogen. But behold, if you Google 'microscope led hack,' you should find a few sites on how to LED your microscope. Amscope also sells an LED microscope light attachment for $30 bucks, which I think it can be used (or hacked) for this model. You may find the microscope light fantastic as it is. It does work fine, but I personally think it could be better, since LED is a more quality light and actually cheaper than halogen. It also seems that LED technology is now becoming the standard lighting in modern microscopes. Ever lived in a house/apartment with standard incandescent bulbs and you noticed how everything became vivid-like after changing to fluorescent bulbs (or even LED)? That's the similar effect you'll find with a microscope with LED. The star rating is 5 stars for the microscope, and 4 1/2 stars on the light. OH, for beginners, don't forget to calibrate (or adjust) your light/diaphragm on the microscope. I don't think this is quite important, as it was never taught in lab. It is like a 1 minute process that involves placing a paper under the light (one of the methods I came across), and adjusting other stuff like diaphragm to get a clearer, defined view. Doesn't hurt. Google 'adjusting microscope' or some type of variation like that.

This is an excellent microscope. It's easy to use, has great optics in the eye pieces and objective lenses, and both of the condensers that come with it are of decent quality. It was easy to add polarization to for even more versatility in viewing specimens. The top tube for attaching a camera (adapters sold separately) works great, allowing for both photos and videos. For its price, I cannot think of a single reason to give it less than five stars. Were it twice the price, I'd probably ding it a star for claiming to provide 2000x magnification, when 1000x-1200x is the maximum actual (i.e. usable) magnification a microscope can provide using light in the visible spectrum. Anything above this is just further enlarging these magnification limitations and issues that come with maxing them out. It's a solid, capable microscope with great overall quality, especially at this price. I can comfortably recommend it, even for use in science classes in schools.

Originally 3 stars, one year later I had to drop to 1 star. I had to do some cleaning because the lenses were dirty out of the box. In retrospect, I should have returned it then! But I was so pumped to have my own microscope I didn't want to part with it. Anyways, it is pretty much impossible to get this microscope to focus past 100x, so the fact that it even has an oil immersion lense is laughable. I did a lot of research before buying this, and it was supposedly one of the best budget microscopes. If you are a hobbyist and/or have some college-level bio under your belt, you will be disappointed.

Purchased this for field study and home use. I love the stage, the generous size and coordinates make exploring your slides easy. With the trinocular port you can capture images while observing in real time, or show your work in real time on a external monitor which is why I purchased a real trinocular instead of a binocular with a camera port. I have used a cheap webcam, DSLR camera, cellphone camera and a point and shoot to take pictures and HD video successfully. I use this mainly for micromorphology and soil samples but have also observed tissue samples and cells with excellent clarity. The condenser and lamp are easily adjusted and as bright as you can stand, the body and construction are sturdy and of quailty material. The turret for the eye and camera pieces is a nice touch and works well and the objectives and eyepieces were dust free and come with good cases. Overall I couldn't be happier with my purchase so far after around three months.

I was hopeful that a modestly priced microscope would perform well enough and I was so happily surprised that the look and feel was as good as a more professional microscope I use at a veterinary facility. Mechanically it is excellent, smooth coarse and fine focus adjustment. Focusable condenser with diaphragm and halogen lamp with brightness control and unexpected 3 filters to adjust light color. 1000x allowed me to visualize gram stains perfectly! The objectives maintain coarse focus as changing so you only need adjust fine focus. Mechanical stage is fine. The only negative which I do not care about is focus falls off at edges. I able to take perfect photomicrographs by putting an ocular lens into upright camera tube and placind iPhone on top. See photo of gram stain from avian fecal smear.