So I had a play with it.
Doesnt really lend itself to the space I have at the minute while Im away but I can make it work.
I did have a good play with it and
Its a nice bit of kit but given the reviews by people like PhilsComputerLab I was expecting much more than what I got.
If you get it for free like the youtubers seem to and they want to keep the freebies coming in then yeah I can understand their reviews they give for it.
The arm is ok but its not worth the extra money they put on the package as it is just a generic metal arm.
Its the cheapest for of metal arm you can get.
The pole is just a pole, the arm mounts to it as a collar, with a wing nut to tighten it down.
The arm is made of two bars mounted over under so it adds height to the arm over all.
There are not articulating ball joints or other such devices you would expect of an arm in this price range.
The microscope mounts to the arm in the cheapest way you can imagine!
The scope in all packages is supplied with the same height adjustment arm, that is quite separate from the black metal arm described above.
It is this height adjustment arm you would screw down to the metal base plate in the cheaper package that doesnt include the metal mounting arm.
The black metal arm has a L shaped bracket on the end of it that has a screw thread on it. The height adjustment arm screws into it and has a collar nut tighten down to hold the arm in place.
It really is the cheapest of the cheap way of doing it. Very disappointing considering the price of it.
The scope itself mounts to that arm by dropping down into the hole and a pair of grub screws tighten to hold it in place. They are fitted with nylon ends to prevent damage to the scope.
The ring light is also a cheap affair, the kind of thing you would find on aliexpress for £2.69 plus shipping.
It mounts to the scope with grub screws, but there is no place of the scope to prevent the light from sliding down, AND the back of the light, the part with the on/off switch and the dim control on it sticks out of the back so far it interfears with the metal height adjustment arm, so you have to mount it at an angle to be able to use the full travel of the arm...
But it works so far, its bright enough. Its mains powered (UK 240v) so it isnt going to last forever on full power, but there is a dim control to limit the current.
The scope itself.
The rear of the screen has a MicroSD card slot that doesnt seem to like my SanDisk 64Gb cards, but it was supplied with a card.
The USB-C slot powers the scope and charges the battery, the HDMI output is HDMI, you would need an active converter to get VGA out of it as my HDMI to VGA cable doesnt work.
They are rear facing so quite useable.
The scope has the controls on the front, the built in light with brightness slider on the left, power button in the middle and menu controls to the right of it.
The menu is what you would expect from a DSLR 15 years ago, its clunky and procedural, there are 4 headings with related options branching off those to control the verious aspects of the camera.
The quality of the scope is also what you would expect from a 15 year old DSLR.
In fact I would say if you mounted an old DSLR to a arm with a nice close up lens on it then you get the same results.
Problem is when you put the scope to close to the subject its focus hunts and then gives up and switches to manual control, but once in manual control it wont hold the focus you put in to it. It just keeps switching to auto focus and tracking out.
The capture from the camera is ok. It caps 4k or 1080p, the photos are also nice... More Canon than Nikon and but the lens is nice enough.
It transfers to PC via its MicroSD in universal standard video format of .MOV
Little more can be said about that, its what you would expect from 15 year old tech, it works well.
I got mine on the back of the reviews I saw on youtube.
It made me realise that while those reviewers are free to say what ever they like about the products they are mindful that if they do make a honest review they wont get any more freebies off other companies in the future.
Over all i would say if you have the spare cash go for it. If you dont then dont. Its not worth close to £300... £200 is closer to what its worth.
I got mine for less than that so Im happy but I would be very disappointed had I spent £300 on it.
