My First Lab Duo-Scope Stem Microscope with 50 Piece Accessory Kit

I read quite a few reviews on microscopes because we wanted to get my 8 year old one for Christmas. We bought one at Toys R Us but when I read the reviews on it they were all 1 stars. After finding a website that reviewed them this was the second best one that was recommended and was cheaper than the top one so I figured it would be a good purchase. We took the one back to Toys R Us and I quickly ordered this one. It was about 25 dollars more than the toys r us one but I am so GLAD we upgraded to this one. This thing is really cool. It has 2 light settings. One for clear/transparent objects and another for solid objects. I could not be happier and I love messing with this thing as well. My daughter likes it as well. We found an earwig and we were able to zoom in on it and look at the legs and antennae and see the tiny hairs and appendages. Since we live in a cold climate we have not found any ponds but there is one close by where we live and we will be going to get some water when the weather warms. The products seems durable and the tray is easy to move up and down to get focused. I do like that it is battery powered so it can be taken on the move. After using this with my daughter for 2 days I can't find anything I do not like about it. It comes with a one year warranty which is nice. Pros: Fun, objects are clear if focused, easy to use, durable Cons: No educational books So if you are looking for an educational tool that is fun and interesting buy this now. If you are looking for a cheap item that is more of a toy then get something cheaper. I'd say this is more for the kid that likes science. For the value this one can't be beat.

For Christmas I received two gift $50 certificates to Amazon and so I used some of the money to buy the Duo-Scope. I was a little hesitant to purchase it because it was listed as a toy and as a 19 year old college student I wanted something of quality. After reading the rave reviews I went ahead and got it and so far it has really lived up to its reputation! It is light weight and portable making it ideal for home or field study and the versatility of having the two lights really makes this "toy" worth the money. This scope has quality optics and an adjustable aperture mounted beneath the stage to allow varying levels of light to hit the specimen allowing for clear and easy viewing. The included concavity slide is great for viewing live specimens (such as those found in pond water) and the LED lights operate at a low temperature so you won't immediately roast your specimens (a problem I had with the class scopes in high school). I'm not sure if the prepared slides vary from kit to kit, but mine came with pollen, salt crystals, paramecium, and mouth smear slides. I would have been nice if the stage moved side to side to view different portions of the slide or specimen but this really isn't a problem at all. I marked the scopes durability as a 3 out of 5 because although the scope is metal and is made to be used in the field, it is still a piece of scientific equipment and should be handled with care. Overall, the MFL-06 microscope is a quality piece of equipment that will allow for years of fun and educational scientific study for scientist of all ages!

Great first microscope. I did play with it too; I used microscopes at school, many years ago, and of course this won't compare with professional equipment, but it is good enough for kids. The resolution is good; if you have time to prepare your samples, you will have a lot of fun. The box include 5 blank plates; be sure to not break them, they are really fragile, and for sure not suitable for kids (the edges are sharp). Overall it is easy to use, you can look at simple things like stones, metal coin and also hair and bits of skin, but the fun is to watch very small items, although you need patience in preparing the samples, or just save time and get a pre-made set with most of the nice samples ready to be looked at. The light below is strong but not super strong, so if you use samples that are too thick, you won't see much. The top light is good but if you use the maximum magnification attachment, it will cover the top light so you won't see anything. the controls are simple, overall feel sturdy enough, although you want to supervise your kids, because there is no lock mechanism for the moving plate: you move it too close to the magnifier and you can actually break either the magnifier attachment or the sample. Once you find the right distance it works fine, but it takes a moment to get distracted and end up moving the plate too much, so beware of that. In the end, there are a lot of accessories to do preliminary observation on many things; I had no luck in observing living cells, so unless you have big bacteria or micro-organisms around, you won't be able to see living cells (I did try with some blood and some dirty water in a yard puddle and could not see much). Perfect as first microscope, I am having as much fun as the kids!

I have purchased (and returned) several microscopes from Toys R US for my 10 year old son. We still have one we paid $30 for, and it has a cheap lens, a cheap light and is made from flimsy plastic. My son never really enjoyed using it because it wasn't clear or easy to use (light was bad, lens was cheap and always dirty). He really pressed us for a new one, and I vowed not to buy another cheap microscope just to appease him. I saw some other microscopes in the $30-50 range, but the ratings on them were pretty bad. Then, I came across this microscope and saw it had almost all 5 star reviews. Let me tell you that this microscope is AWESOME. My son can easily use it. It has bright dual LED lighting. It has quality lenses and is easy to focus. It is durable. I have never seen my son more excited about anything. The criticism I read about the mircroscope and my comments are as follows: 1. It doesn't have a mirror so you must use the lights: has anyone ever successfully used a mirror to ably illuminate a slide? These lights are LED and are better than most any mirrored light. The batteries will last forever. 2. The upper and lower lights can't be turned on at the same time. Somewhat of a concern, but chances are, if you illuminate it from below and the subject is to thick, you'll only need the top light anyway because the light from below won't penetrate the specimen. Having an upper light is spectacular, because many only have a light underneath. The upper light allows you to view just about anything that will fit without having to dissect it into a wafer thin specimen so that the light can shine thru from underneath. 3. The highest magnification requires more light than is available. What I think happens here is that the shaft holding the lens is long, and the upper light gets blocked by this shaft due to the angle of the light. So, it wouldn't matter if it were the brighest light out there because it is blocked by the shaft. This alone should not cause you to bypass this microscope, as you can shine light from another source if you really wanted to. This may be called "My First Lab", but it can easily be used for many years. You shouldn't have any doubt about this product.

After receiving a 28-piece microscope kit for Christmas that had a plastic scope that broke within 5 minutes, we were in a dilemma: Our son decided he really wanted a microscope, but we didn't want to get burned again. After much research, a science teacher at my school said she bought this for her child. She said the quality was great and that it does things some of the scopes in her high school lab didn't do. We bought it for our son's birthday and it's a huge hit! It is made of very durable materials, is easy to use, and is an extremely high quality for the price. My sons are 7 and 9 and we've had a blast with it! The fact that it's a duo allows you to view slides and objects they pick up around the house. The were amazed when we put different types of print under it to see the difference. I bought a book that Amazon recommended to go with it, and the box of extra slides they listed, and I see us having hours of educational fun. If you don't get a book of experiments and activities, you might run out of ideas quicker. With the great bargain you're getting on the scope, another $10 on a book isn't a huge deal. We haven't used any of the slide-making tools that came with it, but there's a nice bag of goodies. This is a great product that will allow the family to enjoy together and learn in the process. I seriously see this as something we'll use through high school, and will help immensly when the dreaded science projects start being assigned! Don't spend any more money than this. It's just not necessary! From personal experience, research before buying anything cheaper. You'll be compromising on quality and possibly trying to explain to your child why his Christmas present needs to go in the trash.

I looked at a lot of different microscopes on Amazon before picking this one, and I gotta say I think I made the right choice. Obviously it's not the quality you'd find in a High School lab class, much less a professional laboratory, but it's extremely nice for home use. I got it for my 10 year old, but the whole family has been using it. After looking at a lot of choices I picked this one based on ratings and because it was the cheapest I could find with actual optical glass lenses (from my experience the plastic ones aren't bad for just messing around, but the lack of quality gets annoying fast). This microscope works great, appears to be solidly made, and the only complaint I might have at all is that the most powerful lens WILL touch and break a slide if you move in too close. But I think that's hard to avoid, so I still gave it a "5" based on quality for price. Very nice. And that fact it has both a bottom and top light (particularly vs. a flimsy bottom mirror) works great. Hope it lasts (just have had it a few days) but from the feel of it I'm guessing it will.

1. When I first opened the product, the mashed paper packaging was not not particularly awesome to look at. More like getting eggs. 2. On removing the microscope, the objective lens piece just fell off. I was very lucky it did not break. I wonder why its so loose and if that's the case, maybe they should just tape it in place or something to prevent accidents while opening the first time. I wrapped a rubber band on the groove of the objective lens and after inserting it back, the piece fit snugly and does not come off easily any more, but yet can be pulled out easily if at all required. I recommend this procedure for all users to avoid breaking the eye-piece lens. 3. The biggest problem for me was the stage. The screw adjustment moves the stage instead of the lenses and that causes focus issues when you try to adjust the slides. The stage just starts moving downwards with the slightest weight of your hands and you have to start all over again. Perhaps a click lock to hold the stage once the focusing is achieved would help. 4. Magnification seems OK and the lenses are clear. 5. Bottom light is good, but the top light could have been brighter. 6. The main body is metal, which is good, but the black plastic base seems a bit cheap. The battery compartment is not the best design I have seen and it was difficult to insert batteries without bending the springs considerably. 7. The prepared slides are VERY POOR in quality and I would have hoped for something more colorful to show the kids. 8. I wish they include one or two plastic slides and cover slips. I have ordered these separately, but until they arrive, I am afraid to let a 7 year old handle glass slides. [Update.. my 7 year old dropped the cover slip and fine shards glass were all over the place. Definitely a concern.] 9. Delivery was amazingly fast, reaching me in India on the 4th day. Awesome. 10. As someone else has said, the 40x objective lens will touch the stage, which is not a good thing and can crack the slides 11. The highest magnification needs the stage to be VERY CLOSE to the lens. The problem noted above causes the lens to hit the slides very frequently. --------------------------------------- UPDATE --------------------------------------- Amazon just refunded me some money on this product because it cost them less than what they had charged for import duty. That's simply awesome. I appreciate the honesty and the fact that I can rely on them for all this. Will be definitely buying a lot of stuff from Amazon simply for the fantastic delivery and priority to customers over vendors. Thanks Amazon!

My daughter had an Amazon gift card and picked this out for herself. She has been excitedly searching for things to observe since we got it. We both have had a lot of fun exploring and observing together. We included pics of how all the included prepared slides looked through the microscope(taken on my phone). I was actually surprised at the quality of this little microscope. Yes, most of it is plastic, but it's a nice, sturdy plastic and the parts that really matter, like the objectives, eyepiece tube, and lenses are metal and glass. It magnifies X40, X100, and X1000. I think one of my favorite features on this microscope is the LED lights sub-stage and overhead that allows you to view both slides and solid objects, such as plants, coins, and insects. It's also battery-powered so it allows for portable use "in the field." It comes with 5 blank slides, cover slides & slide labels for those, 4 prepared slides (ours came with paramecium, salt crystal, mouth smear, and pollen...those are really cool, the pollen was our favorite), 1 double well slide (for liquids, like pond water) all slides are glass, except for the double well slide, and come with 2 plastic carrying cases they all fit in. Also included are a plastic dropper, 2 bottles non-toxic "stain" (red & blue, they're actually just food coloring), forceps, lens paper, test tube (small, glass), Petri dish (small,plastic) and a user's manual. It also comes with a 1 year limited warranty. The user's manual has lots of pictures and explains what each piece is and how to use it. It also has lots of good ideas for observation like onion cell-mitosis, observing mold growth, insect observation, shaking grains of pollen on a slide, comparing hairs from various animals, observing different fibers, how to stain specimens, and more. My only real complaint about this microscope is there are some small spots that are always there when you look through the eyepiece (they can be seen on our pictures as small grey spots). I have cleaned all the outside lenses numerous times, so I know there must be either dust on the inside or just cheap glass lenses. It is only slightly annoying and we eventually got used to them. For those of you interested in this for a child, we have found the book Greg's Microscope by Millicent E. Selsam to be helpful in sparking young children's interest in exploring our world through a microscope. It's an old book no longer in print, but you can find it on eBay. All in all, this little microscope would be great for a child, beginner, or even just an "in the field" tool. Easy to use and lots of fun!