Input on this oscilloscope please

Can anyone let me know if this is a good/decent choice for the money?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Digital-Oscilloscope-Rigol-DS1102E-100MHz-Color-USB-2CH_W0QQitemZ120414328892QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_Oscilloscopes?hash=item1c0940d83c

If not, could you recommend a specific one within the same price-frame (it's 700-ish, the less the better, but not at the cost of quality/specs)

That scope looks like it is a pretty awesome deal for the features you are getting. Rigol has been around for years making pretty good scopes. You'd be hard pressed to find the same features on a different digital scope for cheaper. Go for it!

its about 704$ more expensive than mine

Its a nice unit, but I guess my question is,... are you in a position where you would get good use out of such a machine?

TBH I really don't use mine a whole bunch, Its darn handy when I do so I am glad I have it, but also I got it for free (with the horrible repair task of plugging the crt back in), so its not a 700$ chunk of equipment collecting dust

Thanks for the input, I guess I'll be getting this one. As for price, I'm not paying for it, my robotics team is, which means all I have to do is tell them it's an investment because it's a very useful tool.

I'm curious. Wouldn't it make sense to add a Logic Analyzer to the tool bench, even if it means getting a cheaper/used O'scope?

one could argue that an arduino could be used as a logic analyzer

Wouldn't it make sense to add a Logic Analyzer to the tool bench

Logic analyzers are a rather specific instrument for specific problems limited to the digital domain. A good O-scope is much more general purpose and can be used in both the analog and digital domain.

So I would say one should first acquire the best O-scope one can afford and then later decide if more specialty test instruments are required. A good DVM and O-scope can fill a lot of needs and requirements, don't skimp on either.

Being a older then dirt type, I tend to favor the older vintage solid state O-scopes made by Tektronics from say the 70s on. I'm presently using a Tek 2213 but have used lots of other Tek models in the past. They can be picked up for very good prices on E-bay and such, although condition is sometimes hard to judge from ads. There are good user support forums for Tek scopes with access to lots of schematics, service manuals and leads on parts.

Lefty

Osgeld: one could argue that an arduino could be used as a logic analyzer

retrolefty: Logic analyzers are a rather specific instrument for specific problems limited to the digital domain.

Yes, okay. For my purposes I want to see the combination of about 10 digital input pins. I want to observe the timeline of switched states... graphically is good. My tek465b is only 2 channel.

Thanks to Osgeld's 'prompting'... I found post below. May serve well enough to forego buying USB-based or standalone LA.
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1250255591
But I just don't want to spawn a time-sink 'project' just to build tools though.

I trust this contributes to the OP as much as it helped my evaluation.