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

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.

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....

Initially the product looked ok and exactly as described. I let my son play with it however after a few weeks it became clear that he couldn't properly focus it and more in-depth examination revealed that one of the inner tubus lenses where missing! Really bad!

I must say both my son (8) and I are fascinated by the tool; it delivers good results for the price. As other reviewers said, the LED is below expectations. Using the examiner in a well lit location therefore remains a must. I was a little surprised by the fact that the top lenses/eyepieces are not attached to the unit: they slide in at the top and are held in position by gravity only. Not much of an issue when the Examiner is on a table, but it's tricky when you move the Examiner around. I am also a little disappointed by the fact that additional eyepieces cannot be ordered through amazon.co.uk, but only by directly contacting the manufacturer. It's not convenient. Can anything be done for that? On the whole however, the Examiner is a super deal. Try it!

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.