Wireless Digital Microscope, ROTEK 50x to 1000x Microscope Magnification with HD 1080P 2MP Camera, Mini Pocket Handheld Microscope Camera with Light Compatible for iPhone Android, iPad Windows MAC

I like being able to have it wireless to my iPad then projecting it wireless to an interactive board in a science class.

I really didn't expect to love this gadget as much as I do. Once I connected it to my iPhone 6 (very simple) and remembered to take the clear lens cap off (duh, I was wondering why the "lens" was so scratchy), I couldn't stop looking at everything around me. I spent about 2 hours just fixated on looking at my jeans, my fingertips (ew, and I thought they were clean), paper, hair, and everything else under the sun.When I was done fooling around, I discovered a new use for this. I just took a course in identifying plant diseases and parasites, and being able to see the underside of leaves on a microscopic level AND take a photograph is a huge help. Once a leaf is detached for diagnosis, it starts to wilt within minutes, and this allows me to capture a very good, clear photo of the symptoms and/or cause while the tissue is still fresh, so I can diagnose at my leisure. It also allows me to document the history of disease in a plant or collection. Every gardener who's serious about integrated pest management should have one of these to augment their lighted magnifying loupe.

I've been having a ton of fun with this Wi-Fi microscope. It only had one issue that almost made me give up on it, but I worked through it and I'll explain it here in case it happens to anyone else. First, the setup is extremely simple. Charge the microscope using your own micro USB cable or the one provided. On iPhone, download the Max-See app. I checked the Google Play store and the Max-See app is not there, but there may be an alternative that works. Since I mainly use iPhone, i will focus on that app for this review.Once the app is installed, you turn the microscope on by pressing the round power button on top and go to your Wi-Fi settings and connect to the Max-See network. This will disconnect you from any other Wi-Fi you have while you use the microscope. The phone calls it an "Unsecured Network" because there's no password. That's not a problem in this case since it's just a little local network it created that doesn't connect to the internet.Now you are ready to start taking pictures or video. I wasn't able to capture great video because the image takes a while to stabilize. I was able to capture some decent photos. One important tip is to immediately go into settings and change the resolution from 1280x720 to 1920x1080. This will produce photos in 1080p resolution and will look a lot better.Next, You are going to want to put the microscope on the chrome stand and remove the plastic lens cap covering the camera. The way you focus is you get as close to the object as possible. This is easiest to start with flat items like money or a flat leaf.put the camera directly on the item and adjust the silver magnification wheel until it comes into focus. The closer you are to the item, the bigger you will be able to focus it. If you are an inch away, you will not light it up very well but you also will not be able to zoom in as well. So the 50x-1000x thing is a combination zoom and focus, although technically the focus is determined by the distance from the object. Once focused, which takes some patience and depending on your phone/tablet, the screen may take a second to refresh, you can also zoom in by pressing the 2 smaller buttons on the underside of the micoscope. You can zoom up to 2.0x. If you manage to get a really focused image at 1x, the 2x won't be too blurry and you can do some really extreme close ups of things, especially flat objects. If there is too much light on the item and it's washed out, you can turn that down with the wheel above the power button.On the iPhone X, the preview image takes up the whole screen, which is nice. You can touch the screen and all the UI controls go away if that helps you focus the image better. One weird thing about the software is the icons are all sideways if you use the camera in landscape mode, which is what I do. It would be nice if you could manually or auto rotate those icons, but it's not a big deal. You can rotate the camera image 180 degrees, which is especially useful for video which isn't as easy to rotate once you finish recording. To take photos, you just press the power button quick or press the camera icon on your phone. It saves the photo/video to your phone camera roll and is also viewable in the app in a little section that displays all the photos and video you've taken.To turn the camera off, just push the power button for about 2 seconds. It gets a little warm when you use it for a long time and your phone screen will be on the whole time, which is good but also drains your battery if your screen is on bright, so keep that in mind.Things I didn't like: There are 2 things that really bothered me and is why I can't give this a 5 star rating even though I really like it overall. First, the 50x-1000x zoom adjustment gets stuck sometimes and I almost gave up on this the first time it happened. It gets stuck when you zoom out to 50x, at least on my unit. When that happens, you can't move it either direction, and I was going to try to open it up and fix it but it's all glued together and I would have ruined it if I tried that. So I decided to just use more force and shake it a bit and I was able to wiggle it loose. It locked up a few more times like that, even though I tried not to zoom it all the way out. I have noticed that it doesn't do it as much now, maybe whatever thing was catching has worn down and so it doesn't get stuck as much or as hard. If this happened to a child, they wouldn't be able to use it, as it requires a lot of force to fix it and it almost seems like you are going to break it. I was very close to giving this a 1 star review because of that, as it happened when I first started using it, but after playing with it more, I realized this was just an inexpensive but very functional Wi-Fi microscope, and really end models can be many hundreds of dollars. So I understand the poor quality control, although it's kind of annoying. I don't see other reviewers talking about this, so I'm thinking it was just an issue with my unit so keep that in mind as well.Second thing I didn't like - While I liked this microscope overall and have been having a ton of fun playing with it, I think this could be frustrating for very young kids who don't have the patience to focus an image to get really good results. On the other hand, it's a great learning tool and once you learn how to take good photos, you will be looking for all sorts of stuff to take photos of. I was really fascinated by how detailed cash is, there are a lot of hidden things that you can search for on money. Sometimes the image freezes up and it can be tedious to try and focus on an object. I saw this happened a lot more once it was on for a while, like over 30 minutes. When I first turn it on, it seems to focus instantly and display more smoothly on my screen. I think resolution may also have something to do with it, so you could focus at lower resolution and adjust it higher once it's in focus.Finally, the holder they provide is mostly metal but it's not very tall and somewhat cheap. So you are always fighting with the stand to be in the correct position, especially when trying to photograph 3 dimensional items. I found it easiest to just have it pointed straight down. The base also isn't very heavy so it's easy to tip over in some positions. Just a small thing that annoyed me.Overall, a great product, really fun and useful. I took some photos and attached them here. I think most of them are 1080p, sometimes I forget to change the resolution setting. That is another thing that bothers me, that it resets every time. They could fix that with a software update though. I'm mostly disappointed with the build quality, because the camera works well but they used the cheapest plastic on the rest of the unit to save money.Here are descriptions of the attached photos:1. US 10 dollar bill front2. US 10 dollar bill rear3. US Dime4. NVIDIA GTX Circuit board5. Piece of the Berlin wall6. Cactus7. Leaf

It's Good...Impressive for a sub $50 microscope. I was thinking that it would be ok, but it images better than I thought it would. Yes it has a plastic zoom/focusing ring, plastic body, and only the stand is metal. But the quality of the video and photos are excellent.I tested it with an iMac. It works great. I have it plugged into a 7 port powered USB hub. Each port has a dedicated on/off button. This has proven convenient as it can be hit or miss to power off the microscope. The dedicated button allows me to turn it off there. To turn it on you hold down the power button for a couple of seconds.To control the zoom you turn the grey thumb dial near the front of the scope. To focus you can adjust the distance between the object and the lens. Or you can set the distance first and use the zoom dial as a focusing dial.The LED illuminator works very well and evenly. Objects are bright and clear. The dimming range is very good.There is a clear plastic lens cover that you need to remove before use. I don't know why they designed it to look like an integral part of the scope rather than a lens cap. They could have at least not made it clear. But you can see it in the stock photos. If you don't remove it you can still use the scope with it on but it will add scratches and distortions to the imaging because the clear plastic cover has texture and scratches in it.To take photos with the USB microscope on MacOS you will need to launch and use "PhotoBooth". You select it as the camera instead of the built-in one. When you take a photo you will get the 3 second countdown and then the photo is taken. I like the countdown as it allows me to hold things steady and otherwise get a better photo.You can then export the photo to the "Photos" app and edit it there.I've given this 5 stars. It perhaps would really be 4.5. But if I had never seen it and rather just seen the images it takes I would have guessed it came from a $100 plus camera. Considering the quality of the images and the price of the microscope I would say it is a good value. User friendly and easy to use.I have it wired via USB and it works great that way. I just realized that it doesn't turn off after using it if it is plugged in. It turns off by holding the power button for 2 seconds when only running on its own battery power. Also figured out the app and wifi setup. Pretty cool. Now I can take videos and photos and take it with me outside. The portability of it is great. I like it even more.

To operate this digital microscope you MUST use an external app. The app, like most of these lesser expensive electronics, isn't great. You connect to the microscope via Wifi, which means you're arent' online when using this. I much prefer Bluetooth connections as the wifi route is suboptimal. Once you get it all connected the image quality is ok. The microscope is extremely sensitive to movement. They include a little stand which if you want a clear image you'll need. These digital microscopes are a dime a dozen on Amazon, and most of them are pretty much the same. This one does the job, but there isn't anything exceptional about it.