Celestron 44300 HandHeld Digital Microscope

The Celestron microscope is a great little tool, usually I have to go into the clean room to view a package under one of our optical microscopes, now I can do it at my desk. It's well worth the small cost!.

The driver won't work with windows Vista 64 bit system. I found this out after talking to multiple support people and submitting requests on the internet. I never recieved any response, I always had to spend 20 minutes on hold to talk to someone.

Camera feels cheap and I imagine it would be difficult to push "click" button without shaking the camera.
Since I was never able to use it, I can't say if the quality is good or bad.
I have used Dino-lite scopes before and I was impressed with them, that is what I am going to buy right now.

I was impressed with Amazon's return procedure, if you buy one it will be easy to return.

The major problems I had with this item are:

1. The lens had edge-to-edge streaks on the surface.
2. The image had constant blobs that did not move, as if the CCD was dirty.
3. The focus cylinder would stick and jump making focusing impossible. A drop of grease could have fixed this.
4. The software issued a Windows Certificate warning and has no options to set the install directory. It is a one-shot installation.

The microscope is too expensive for such poor quality.

Received and tested. Found Celestron handheld microscope all that it claimed to be. With either 20x or 400x, together with computer software magnifications I was able to effectively range in magnification from 20x to 400x...Clear images were easily obtainable and the four LED lamps together with self adjusting software provided excellent lighting. computer installation of included software is relatively fast and easy.