NEW Tektronix 2 Series MSO Oscilloscope FIRST REACTION

Dave's first reaction on seeing the new tektronix 2 Series MSO oscilloscope, without knowing anything about what it was going to be or look like! This is NOT a review, it's a literal unedited single take video of my first reaction to seeing it.

Support the EEVblog on:

Buy anything through that link and Dave gets a commission at no cost to you.

Donate With Bitcoin & Other Crypto Currencies!

#electronicscreators #unboxing #reaction

[hempbear]

It's got CLOUD OMG. Does it have a facebook button so you can share your waveform with friends? :P

[ionstorm]

The industrial design is amazing. The fact they use VESA for the main stand and the kickstand is amazing. You can not only mount the battery to the main stand, or the kickstand to the scope, but also mount the battery to small monitor arm. Then stick a mag base on that. Would be amazing for field work.

[WacKEDmaN]

Daves like a kid at xmas who got the toy he's been wanting for all year!

[radman]

Pretty brave of Tek to allow Dave to do a hot take review on a pre-release product.

[StreuB]

Paying homage to the design team and the guy saying that the team will really get a kick out of your positive comments is actually really special. As a designer myself, those types of comments give you warm fuzzies like crazy and let you know you've done something right or thought about something that others notice and respect. Thats great.

[retroniker]

According to the Tektronix homepage, the oscilloscope in the configuration shown here costs just under $20, 000 (i.e. with 500 MHZ, battery pack, etc.). For this you get a device that takes an eternity to boot up, the cheapest "clickers" as buttons and a mirrored display that is difficult to read.

And for this version, apparently not even adequate probes are supplied, but they cost an extra few thousand dollars. Presumably it will be more like $25, 000.

I first had to look at the calendar to see if it happened to be 1 April... Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a bad joke.

The device seems to be more for dummies who think they can get this device for $1600. And after unpacking it, realise that they have to invest 10 times this amount to get anywhere near what is shown here.

Or directly buy a much better device from Keysight for a fraction of this price.

[bartoszkazmierczak]

membrane switches in a 2k$ scope... No probe id is also a downgrade from the 2000 series scopes. It feels more like a cool gimmick than a low-end everyday use scope.

[thedanyesful]

Looks great to me. Looks like premium build quality and a great feature set and I love that the engineers actually took the time to stand there and help you demo it. I feel this content is really suited to your main channel.

[WizardTim]

Very nice idea, the market certainly needs more battery options for desktop scopes when a full rugged field scope is just excessive.

I do agree with Dave, the front panel design feels a bit weird, however I don't think it's a needs more colour thing but just that it looks weird compared to the white design of the other Tek series scopes plus the strange dome keys probably get use to it pretty quick. It's worth noting the other scopes that have a black colour scheme also use black plastic with only small white/grey accents on the labels.

However biggest disappointment for me is the use of a straight 4-pin DIN plug for charging, it juts out quite far making bunching up equipment close together on your bench impossible, a 90 degree plug that has a flush cutout feels like a requirement for this, would look weird on any desk and would be just asking to be pulled out on a VESA mount.

[lensherman]

This scope looks very similar to my Micsig STO1104C which has been around for a few years and is around $500. The Micsig is only 100MHz, but it has real buttons, and a pretty good UI. The Micsig is basically a scope front-end built around an Android tablet, which is obviously a cheaper, less elegant way to built a 'scope, but it's not clear that Tek got much benefit from starting from scratch.

[jb]

it looks alright, I have positive feeling towards it, my only complain would be the lag on UI, both input and output.

[Gengh]

Awesome to see a new scope, eagerly awaiting for the teardown and perhaps a more in-depth look at its features.

[gabiold]

My opinions:
- UX: Why everyone had to invent new user interface navigations? We are used to the OK/Cancel/Apply kind of functionality, on Linux, Mac and Windows. Just put an OK button on those windows and/or an X on the corner to close it. Clicking outside is so annoying, you always have to be careful, where else do you click to not unintentionally activate something.

- UX: I recommend, when the software is reacted to something, just working on it, display a spinner somewhere. Not necessarily in the middle of a screen, possibly blocking some view, but maybe on the header line near the battery symbol, or directly on the button that triggered the event. That would be natural. Dave pressed functions several times, because there is no feedback whether it is registered the touch or physical button event and processing or not registered at all.


- Colors: the black/white is too contrasty. The illuminated ring is almost invisible through the video, because the buttons are white. At least make them dark gray if you want a dark theme, including the stripes. Or black background, dark grey buttons, skyblue text or skyblue stripe with black text. But when colors are involved, everyone will have a personal preference of course. 😉

- There is no excuse of leaving out the illiminated buttons and the fact that they are dome buttons. Seriously, how much a LED cost? This is a few k$ thing, absolutely the LEDs are only the cost saving options? If a calculator can have some mechanical (touchy-feely) buttons, then depth surely isn't an issue here.

- Stand: When you went this far that it has a VESA mount (which is quite cool), why don't you just include a VESA-ended monitor (like) stand with pivoting functionality? I mean, that's quite a standard thing on better monitors, like Dell, and they are detachable without screwing. It would attach to the battery unit as well. I like standard things, this VESA mount has a lot of possibilities, I love it.

- Rubber protector: I see that this is a prototype yet, but I think for field uses it should be a more full protector, covering the back face AND the battery compartment.

- Field use: it is nice to have grip on the back, but maybe would be good to integrate some hanging option as well (possibly in the protector), in case you can't or don't want to set it down somewhere near a cabinet.

[joopterwijn]

Stop viewing the teardown, first wanted to view this one! I like the “black(label)” layout, high contrast!

[jamhough]

Too slow, shiny reflective screen, horrible touch buttons, dim LEDs, missing LEDs, bracket too tall, terribly slow boot up, no confidence with that stand with the buttons, small text and missing colour next to dials/buttons, no option to alter angle other than what it comes with that bracket unless you use a bulky vesa bracket, touch screen and menus need to be faster, not sure on the DIN plug for power. Cost is not “Low end”.
Does not impress me, would probably piss me off.

[illustriouschin]

How much did they really save by doing dome switches on a $2k scope?

[tookitogo]

This is exactly the form factor I’ve been silently predicting for a while! And leave it black! (If anything, make the rest of the case black, too!)

[tonyfremont]

It's got a really nicely engineered stand.

[lolaa]

big cudos for the vesa mount, i dream of having my scope on a boom harm, this is enabling it to finnaly happen.

[florinpandele]

Aluminum stand...and it's included with the product ... not 1000 USD extra ... Are you watching this Apple?
And not to mention vesa - compatible too..