Changing gears today, it’s time to start getting ready for the holiday shopping season! Many parents, teachers, and students alike will be looking for a compound microscope to foster their learning and inquisitiveness, and Levenhuk has been kind enough to provide a sample of their most popular unit, the 2L NG, for review! Never fear–to keep my review of this unit objective, the microscope is back in the mail and en route to Levenhuk. Look out though–you may see more of Levenhuk appear as a contender this holiday season (stay tuned for my annual holiday “best microscope for holiday gifts” post in the coming weeks!)
Before going further, this microscope, while quite excellent at what it intends to do, is primarily focused at an elementary to junior high level educational purposes, as it does what it sets out to well, but does leave more expansion desired. That said, here we go!
Levenhuk 64x – 640x Dual Lit Student Compound Microscope Review – Model “2L NG”
So first off, I absolutely have to comment how it’s pretty cool that Levenhuk has this microscope line in a variety of colors. Color customization is all the rage these days, so it’s really interesting to see how it’s permeating into the microscope market. I was sent the amethyst color of the 2L NG part of their “Rainbow Collection” series (color options range from lime, orange, white, azure, amethyst, and rose, all available on the MicroscopeGenius.com Store), however, at least you can color coordinate with your child’s favorite color or room color, ultimately increasing their long term happiness and time interested in the compound microscope.
For this Levenhuk 2L NG microscope itself, I was a bit surprised at first to see it had a 16x eyepiece in the box without also having a 10x eyepiece. I know this goes against what I say in just about every other review (that you always want a 10x eyepiece for optical resolution purposes), however, with educational level microscopes of this quality point, I think you will be okay with the 16x eyepiece. While inserting a 10x eyepiece (not included) and using the microscope did provide a larger field of view than the 16x eyepiece, I did not notice a massive decrease in resolution between the two, even at higher magnification levels. For the budding elementary student, this will not be an issue at all. It might even be advantageous, as it is easier to describe and see elements that appear larger for a younger child, while older audiences may desire higher optical resolution (which a 10x eyepiece fixes easily).
What I was immensely impressed by was the optical quality from Levenhuk. While there’s a certain margin of error accepted by most lesser known brand of microscopes like AmScope, Omax, and Omano, the Levenhuk 2L NG microscope was absolutely pristine. I thought I saw dust particles or flakes, however, I had to clean my prepared slides off, rather than the lenses on the microscope! Highly impressive to find such attention to detail at this amazing price point. If it came with a 10x eyepiece, I would easily rate this higher than the AmScope M148C that this unit compares to.
The brightness of the Levenhuk 2L NG’s light is quite impressive as well. The unit is dual LED lit, both top for low magnification viewing of opaque objects, and bottom lit for translucent, biological samples. The top light is usually pretty gimmicky due to the angle of incident between the light and the sample pushing too little light into the objective lens. Additionally, the objective lenses usually block part of the light at higher magnification. I didn’t have too much trouble using the top light for opaque samples (granted I viewed small, thin objects like coins). I’m not sure if it’s the angle of the light, or the length of the objectives, but it overall felt less gimmicky and more like a feature–and that’s a very good thing. The lights have an adjustment on the base as well, changing between dual lit, top lit, or bottom lit, as well as a brightness adjustment on the base of the unit, right hand side.
For those of you looking for an iris or diaphragm, a basic model like this will only have a rotating disc under the stage that adjusts the size of the aperture allowing light into the stage area. Pretty common, and really, all you need for a basic compound microscope for students of this age group. Because of this, the Levenhuk 2L NG microscope is a brightfield only microscope–if you need darkfield or phase contrast, you’re probably not shopping for an elementary or junior high school student, and thus, would need a superior quality microscope.
All in all, I think that I am going to have to keep a close eye on Levenhuk and their products like the Levenhuk 2L NG. So far, the quality is there, and I think you will be just as happy with your Levenhuk 2L NG as I am with the one I got to use. Check out their site–I know I will be!
Pictures from my setup coming soon! Be sure to stay tuned for real life images! As always, feel free to leave a comment or an email if you have any questions, comments, or concerns!