The Apex Examiner Microscope, Black & Grey, LED Light Source, Glass Material, 20x Magnification, MICROSCOPES, Stereo Microscope

I bought this microscope for use as a dissecting microscope to prepare samples for my much higher-powered Bresser Biolux. If you are considering buying this microscope, you should understand that it is a low-powered stereocopic scope, suitable for viewing the fine details of insects, stamps, coins, printed matter, jewelry, found debris etc. It'd be great for looking at live fly larvae in a drop of pond water. It is not suitable for truly microscopic life - blood cells, sperm, bacteria, diatoms etc. The distance between the eyepieces is easily adjusted to your eyes. Sometimes, it's worth using a piece of coloured card as a backdrop on the stage - the contrast between your sample and the bright white can be too strong. Other reviewers have said that it is not suitable for slides. This is not strictly correct - it has slide clips, and can be used with prepared slides of larger subjects, such as insect parts, plant stem cross-sections etc. And while a higher-powered microscope is far better for use at the cellular level, you *can* see onion cells and nuclei if properly stained, using iodine for example. There is no fine adjustment of slide position - you just have to move them carefully by hand. Even if you aren't using permanently mounted slides, a few blank slides are a very useful accessory for this scope, as you can use them to support your sample (sugar, nits, dirt...) and move it around under the scope without mucking up the stage. I have a small eyepiece camera and have uploaded a few sample images of what you can expect to see using this microscope. The image quality is limited by the low resolution of my camera (not part of this microscope set-up), and the view using the supplied eyepieces is far better. The camera's field of view (5mm x 3.5mm) is also smaller than the 8mm diameter circle that you can see using the supplied 10x eyepieces. The leaflet that comes with the scope offers a USB eyepiece camera for £55, but I would recommend shopping around, and a pair of 25x eyepieces for £18, but I have not tried these either. For £39, it is unreasonable to expect this scope to compete on quality with laboratory instruments costing £100s, but it provides good clear views of the type of subject material that it is intended for. However, I have a few minor quibbles, hence the 4-stars, not 5. Firstly, the LED is truly pathetic, and insufficient for most purposes - I know it is battery-operated, but I have far brighter battery-powered LEDs in other apparatus. Thus, you need fairly bright daylight or a desk lamp to use this scope. A second LED under the stage would have been useful for translucent subjects - the stage lets some light through, and I have sometimes found that it is useful to stand it on top of a suitable light source. Secondly, independent focusing of the eyepieces, as found in nearly all binoculars, would make this scope far more useable for anyone who has eyes with slightly differing vision, and would also allow me to look down one turret while using a camera in the other. As it is, the camera focuses at a very different point to the eyepiece, so I can't do that. Thirdly, I find it hard to focus accurately and reproducibly using the friction focusing mechanism. While scrolling back and forth, both the plane of focus and the field of view sometimes shift appreciably. They are steady once you let go, but if you roll through the point of focus, and then try to roll back, it's often not there, as one turn of the wheel doesn't move the scope a set distance in the same way a rack focuser would, and tends to produce some side-to-side movement. All in all though, this is a great little microscope, and would make a good introductory instrument, or a supplement to a higher-powered scope.

when this miscroscope came it looked really proffesional and dietaled but when i have a go at it i thought i should of got the national muesem one because it can only zoom in x10 and that was not what i was expecting i could not evn see the cells in the onion skin which you can in any other microscope. it only moves up and down about 4cm and you cant turn the lense also you can only look at it from a limit until it gets blury in addition to that the little plastic thing inside it (what you must think is to put the spesimines in ) is only the bag to put over the misroscope and the last thing it has no slides so overall i would not advise it for over 9 , my daughter 11, was very upset with this and i did not know what to say to her.

My six-year-old child got very interested in looking at things such as cloth weave close-up through the wrong end of binoculars, which give a small magnification. Clearly time to get us a microscope! As a child I had a 'toy' high-power microscope which was pretty useless. The focussing was too crude to cope with the tiny depth-of-field; there wasn't enough light; only very thin specimens between slides could be viewed; it was impossible to tell what part of the slide you were looking at, or move the object with any control, or find something again if you moved the slide. Don't bother with low-price high-power microscopes. This low-power low-price binocular microscope, on the other hand, is brilliant. The 20x magnification is perfect to see loads of features you don't notice with the naked eye, while still easily understanding what you're looking at. No glass slides are involved - you just get out in the woods, grab a handful of nature, stick it under the scope and be amazed! The 3D view is great. The built-in light is ample. The useful depth-of-field of a couple of millimetres makes focussing easy, even for youngish kids. Any object up to about an inch thick can be viewed. Its made of plastic and doesn't weigh much but the build quality is fine for amateur use. Overall, very pleased.

The scope has just average price to quality ratio. As magnification is low and is able to focus on larger objects (lego bricks, stones, potato chips...) the scope is very easy to use and enables you to explore fine details of day to day objects without the need to slice and prepare them. On the other hand the packaging is essential, just cardboad and styrofoam, there is non proper manual, no accessories, and build quality is just average. Magnification is low (20x i understand), a second set of lens with double the magnification would improve the product a lot. Given the mumber of excellent reviews I had higher expectation. It is the fist highly rated item bought on amazon that disappointed me. I was a bit puzzed when the object arrived,it was a gift and looked like a cheap one....

this is a plastic , cheap product that I would not recommend even as first stereomicroscope for a six years old. It is amazing how publicity can deceive you.I normally would not write ant review but I felt I should warn possible customers not to waste any penny on any thing as bad and chip as this

The Apex Examiner Microscope is an excellent microscope, very good value for money, and I would have given it five stars, except for four reasons. 1) I wear glasses and, although I can manage to use it, there its no special provision or instructions that might make this easier. 2) The eyepieces unscrew, which I thought might be an adjustment, but when I loosened one of them the lens became loose and I could not get it back into place without dismantling the whole eyepiece, when it fell apart completely. Two plano-convex lenses and no indication which is which, upper or lower, and which way they fit: plane sides opposite etc, eight possibilities. 3) The single sheet of information does not explain how to re-assemble it, in fact it says little that is not obvious.There really should be a service manual available, even at an extra cost. 4) I sent an email six days ago to "[email protected]" asking for help with this, but so far have not received an acknowledgement or reply.

The instrument was delivered quickly, in robust packaging, but it was disappointing from there on. The microscope was presented in a plain brown cardboard box, with just one A4 printed sheet of instructions which are extremely brief and poorly written. We bought this as a gift but, in terms of presentation, it does not meet basic gift criteria. As a basic, entry-level microscope, it would not be asking to much if a couple of prepared specimen slides could be included in the package. If nothing else, a couple of slides would prove that the instrument works. It is over-priced and, in its current presentation, I would not recommend it to anyone.

I need to be clear that this is not a top quality laboratory standard microscope. The construction is obviously cheap, The focusing is a little hit-and-miss and all but the lenses are plastic. The eyepieces are flimsy and, although the lenses are good quality coated glass, the actual structure of the eyepieces is plastic and care should be taken if using a USB camera as removing and replacing either of the eyepieces could easily result in the eyepiece literally falling apart. This is a cheap product. So why five stars? Because to expect more for £40 would be a little unreasonable. Microscopes vary in quality by the standard of engineering in the construction. However, because of the way modern optics are made, the optics are fairly consistent across the whole range of microscopes available and it is ultimately the optics that make a microscope what it is. This gets five stars not for producing a high standard of engineering but for bringing the advantages of superp optics into the price range of just about everyone. Despite the cheap build, this is a perfectly serviceable microscope and is certainly no toy. The image you get with this instrument is of equal quality with those costing £100 to several hundred pounds. If you want something a little more sturdy and heavy with smooth focusing and metal gears, spend the extra cash it will cost and get a good one. But if, like me, you want to get good sharp and clear images at a fraction of the cost of a rather spartan night out, This is the jobbie for you. I certainly feel that I have got what I paid for and, for all its cheap, plastic flimsiness, I am not disappointed.