I have decided not to get that cheap scope and bought a Tektronix TDS1002 oscilloscope instead. This costed $1000! Since I'm a student, this is a substantial investment and am hoping that I can use it for a long time!
What do people think of this scope? The scopes at school are all high-end Tektronix scopes and I have found them to be pretty easy to use.
The TDS1002 is a 60 Mhz, 2 channel scope and its interface is very similar to the 200 Mhz, 4 channels scopes in my school's EE labs, but I was playing with it and looking at the RS 232 communication with a small circuit I built a while back.
I'm a little concerned about the relatively low storage of the scope; it is only 2,500 data points. The sampling is 1 GS/s, but 2,500 is such a small number. Looking at the 9600 bps of my circuit, it's not possible to capture much of the communication although I really did like seeing the start bit, data, etc. on the screen.
Is 2,500 of storage a reasonable amount for a $1,000 scope? I still have 4 more weeks to return the scope for a full refund and so any opinions/comments are very much appreciated.