Customer Rating:  
Summary: My son loves his new microscope.
Comment: I got this for my 8 year old son and the whole family has enjoyed it. I have had to do most of the focusing so far, but I think he will get the hang of it as we use it more. It is a great, educational activity to do together and then independently. The microsope works great!! My husband and I are both educators and I recommend this item for any child interested in science.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Where's the focus
Comment: I purchased this "microscope" for my daughter for Christmas. I was a little disappointed with the digital portion. Using it as a regular microscope worked as expected but I can get any old microscope to do that. I really wanted the digital portion to work well and get my daughter interested in this type of science. I was never able to get crystal clear images of what I was looking at (like on the box). Instead it was blurry and overlit.
It may be that I received a defective unit but I have yet to receive a reply from the manufacturer after several emails regarding this issue. I recommend that you pass this one up.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can't beat it for the price - how to make the web cam work
Comment: This is a great tool/toy for kids FOR THE PRICE. It is an introduction to microscopes for my 8 and 3 year old boys - they want to put everything under the lens - food, clothes, and themselves. The microscope allows them to understand how a light microscope works (i.e. if light can't pass through the item, you can't see anything) and that there is a whole world of textures and colors all around them that they never knew existed. I would not recommend this for a high school student - the magnification is not good enough to see on a cellular level.
When I first used the web cam, I was very disappointed because the image was too blurry to make out anything. However, I found that by unscrewing the cover just a bit, the images were much better and I could see as well as most inexpensive web cams allow (it is a lot like focusing a camera lens). Since you can attach the web cam to the microscope, everyone can see the slide at once and no one has to squint into the tiny little eye hole. The software is very easy to use and allows you to record snapshots and videos.
The focus is good on 100x and a little trickier on 300x and 900x. (My 8 year old is still able to focus it, though.) The 900x is hard to see - I think the light is not strong enough. It works best on thin, flat specimens. Some of the things we saw were paper and clothes fibers (and ink patterns), feathers, hair, fingernails, salt and sugar plus the slides it came with which are leaf, petal, ostrich and goose feathers, aloe gel, tree bark, cotton, and celery.
The slides are flexible plastic and probably the part that will last the longest in our house. The microscope itself is mostly plastic and would probably not hold up long if tossed in a toy box. The microscope tilts on its base, which is really nice for short scientists.
I did not give this a five for fun because it is not roller coaster ride fun, but this is one toy that my children are truly enthusiastic about playing with. I gave it a 3 for durability because it is mostly made of plastic. On the positive side, the base is heavy enough to keep it from toppling easily. As long as it is properly stored, I expect it to last until my children are ready for the next step up.
Bottom line: I doubt you can find a better deal for an new entry level microscope (I paid $15). Adjust the web cam and you have an enriching toy for kids ages 3-12.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Camera woes with Vista
Comment: Not expecting this to be anything other than a basic toy with variable results, we got this for our son for Christmas so he could display close-ups of whatever he's investigating on a nice big screen using the camera. The microscope would be a bonus for when he's ready to use it. Expectations weren't high, but an unusable Christmas day gift makes for a sad child.
Anyway, on to the camera problem. If you're running Vista you may have problems getting the camera to work. The camera itself is the Chinese ZSMC ZS0211. Do a search on it and marvel at all the hits, hits for people looking for drivers! From which we can conclude it's a bargain basement generic webcam. The packaging states "Windows 98/ME/200/XP or above", I guess that statement was written before Jan 2007 and the public release of Vista.
Strangely, the driver on the disk is dated early 2008, but being unsigned means Vista doesn't want to use it. I'm not going to do the kernel debug dance to run it, assuming that actually works these days. The driver on their non-public searchable web page also fails to work. It's V1.0 dated Aug 2008, well, the page has that date on it. It looks like they did the minimum to get this working and then ceased development and support. Vista has been around for almost two years, so we're looking at an old product here, despite these driver dates.
We didn't test the software - no point with an unusable camera. The 'scope itself is rather cheap plastic. I doubt it would have a long life expectancy in kidland. Amazon will be getting this product back.
Customer Rating:
Summary: If you are having webcam problems
Comment: Loosen (or maybe tighten a little) the lens on the web camera to focus and get a clear picture. The software was a little tricky to get installed. The included software on the disk never completed installation, but a link provided took me to the website to download the latest. The generic webcam software worked fine (after loosening the lens on the camera), but we still haven't been able to get the 'Planet Earth' view/capture software to recognize the camera yet.
The microscope is OK for viewing the included slides at 100 and 300x. At 900x it is difficult to focus, but not impossible. We also haven't been able to focus the webcam clearly with the microscope.
We only paid [...]so it was still worth the price.
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