I’ve noticed more and more pre-med students, med school students, and undergraduate biology majors shopping for a student microscope for their own studies outside of their university required labs, and shopping for a microscope isn’t something that anyone is very familiar with at that point in their lives (neither parents nor young aspiring students), so I went ahead and have a list here of some of the top packages on the market to help make things easier.
These range in terms of quality and price, however I tried to keep it as economical as possible, while still giving the best bang for the buck. All of these models include digital USB cameras as well, as taking pictures to discuss with professors and teacher’s assistants will prove to be quite helpful in their journey through microbiology. Click on the image of any student microscope for more detailed information on them.
1. AmScope’s “T120B-3M” Student Microscope
The T120B-3M tops this list due to its portability, longevity, and being jam packed full of great features. It sports 40x – 2000x magnification, so the entire range of usable magnification from an optical compound student microscope is covered. Coarse and fine focus are both on the microscope, and are coaxial, so there’s no need to move your hand far to change from one to the other.
The student microscope has a transmitted (bottom) light source, powered by an 3W LED bulb, which is about the equivalent in brightness to a 30W halogen bulb. Bonus, LED lights do not emit heat, so you have a longer period of time you are able to view the sample under before it will dry out (great for blood analysis, cheek cells, or pond water critters).
The condenser is a full 1.25 NA Abbe condenser, and can be swapped out later down the road to adapt the unit for darkfield or phase contrast, so you will never need to buy another student microscope again if you take care of this one. AmScope offers a 5 year warranty that covers parts and labor if anything does go wrong with it though, so it will certainly carry you through university studies, and is even used in the field by medical professionals as well with the advanced condenser equipment available for it.
2. Omax’s “CS-MD82ES10-A188V-SCP100” Student Microscope
Another 40x – 2000x unit, this Omax M82ES-SC100-LP100 student microscope is more of a portable package than the T120B-3M, but only due to the inclusion of a vinyl bag to carry the microscope with. The camera is only 1.3MP, so a lower resolution than the above, but the lower price is a bit more attractive than the T120B-3M. It too carries a LED light on it, but I did not find compatible condensers available for it, so this comes only as is for brightfield work, and until parts can be located to swap it, cannot do darkfield or phase contrast down the road. It also is a binocular unit, however the camera is built into the head itself–both a blessing in that it does not have to be transported separately, and a curse in that it cannot be swapped to upgrade without buying an entirely new head.
Ultimately, I would suggest springing for the T120B-3M for the added camera resolution, trinocular port, and swappable camera/condensers, however if it’s not in the budget, this will suffice as an excellent economical student microscope option.
3. Omax’s “CS-M8211-C02-SAA05” Student Microscope
Omax does have another variant on the 40x – 2000x compound student microscopes we have been looking at, which I personally like a little better. This unit is LED like the others, but also has binocular eyepieces with it, so it can be used either way. This means you can also upgrade the camera to a higher resolution than the included 1.3MP down the road, unlike some other units with truly built in cameras.
The optical quality on this is great, although an achromatic student microscope means the field of view in the eyepiece will have the outer 20% or so slightly out of focus (because the lenses are curved). It’s an extremely rugged and durable microscope as well, so if you plan to (or might, even though you don’t plan to) take this around in the field, or move it around a great deal, this can roll with the punches and still remain sharp and true to its initial build calibration.
4. Celestron’s “592400” Student Microscope
This Celestron student microscope is interesting to me, and may be interesting to most students as well, but I would rate this as a microscope for university studies only, as it is a bit odd to use in a professional setting down the road. The microscope doesn’t have any eyepieces at all, instead opting for a unique LCD display to see what is going on in the sample on the stage. This design makes it quite portable and easy for multiple viewers to see (great for study sessions or lab practice with classmates), however since I have little experience with the unit, I’m not wholly convinced on the optical quality of the unit.
The lenses are glass, so the optics themselves are good, but converting any image from an analog image to a digital one, a quality drop is generally noticeable, as affordable sensors aren’t of DSLR quality. It does sport a 5MP sensor, so the image quality will be good and the framerate will be relatively quick, but nothing compares to actually using ones’ eyes to view an analog image. It does take images and video onto a 1GB internal memory, or up to a 16GB SD card, which is great for ease of transfer to discuss with professors and colleagues.
The light is an LED, however I do not see a full Abbe condenser on it, which will lead to lesser evenness of illumination through the field of view on this stereo microscope, however it does accept AA batteries as well, greatly adding to the portability of the microscope. With no condenser though, darkfield and phase contrast cannot be added later, so I’d keep this unit for university work only.
5. AmScope’s “T490B-3MT” Student Microscope
The T490B-3MT is essentially a larger version of the T120B-3M that I prefer as my top recommended student microscope, however it differs in more than just aesthetics.
The illumination source on this is a 20W halogen light. This light source does emit heat after use, as any halogen bulb does, and does need to be replaced every few months to a year depending on how frequently it is used, so it may be less convenient than an LED unit in this case, however it gives a more true to life color in your microscope image since it is closer to natural sunlight color temperature than the LED light does (which tends to be a bright white/blue tinged light). Also, replacing it easily means less chance that you need to send it in for warranty work if an LED light stops working for some reason or another.
It too has all the swappable condenser, coaxial coarse and fine focus, 3D mechanical stage goodness that the T120B-3M does, as well as the 40x – 2000x magnification, but I wouldn’t try to lug this student microscope around anywhere, as it does weight in at a solid 20 lbs. Leave this one in the dorm!
I know of many professionals using this unit in their medical clinics, hospitals, and labs, so if your student (or you) are serious about your medical or biological career aspirations, I highly suggest picking this or the T120B-3M up as soon as possible, as the sooner you have it, the sooner you can get used to it!
If you have any specific questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to ask away! I’m happy to help you make a decision on a unit, or clarify anything I talked about.