Carson MicroFlip 100x-250x, LED UV Pocket Microscope with Smartphone Clip, STEM Education (MP-250)

What should costumers know? This is a great value for the price but keep in mind what you're observing should be either a solid surface or a prepared slide (or a droplet on a slide if that's what you want to do) the objective is very well controlled and pretty hard to accidentally dip inside your sample, overall for simply checking if something is there on an outdoor situation this is amazing, yes there is some distortion but nothing major, and definitely not what you'd expect from this price tag. Very very satisfied.

Magnifier great for checking your marijuana plant.

works well for inspecting stones/geology. difficult to use camera adaptor but it could be my larger phone case.

Me parece que las imágenes no muestran lo que realmente uno ve con el microscopio. Para ver ciertas cosas hay que tener mucha luz y además hay cosas que si no son traslucidas, no se ve nada. Supongo que mis expectativas eran más altas

The microscope has good power, but it's hard to handle—you need a surgeon's steady hand to hit the targets. That makes sense, given that we're dealing with millimeter-sized dimensions.If you don’t mind having a bit of patience to explore things, it's a great learning tool."

Not sure how anyone could rate this poorly for the price. You simply will not find a better microscope for this price.It has a few puzzling design choices. Folding down the slide holder quite literally makes using the UV light impossible to use (turns it off) and switches to a secondary LED light which may or may not be useful. Why not provide the user the ability to choose their own light source instead if forcing it automatically? Eventually I'll modify it so I can use the light source I prefer. It's always confusing when obvious design time was devoted to making a product "less useful", but here we are.Be very careful if choosing to use phone clip. It does NOT thread onto microscope and basically only very barely holds it in place. I can easily see a child breaking their expensive phone trying to use a clip that surely won't support the weight of a phone. I would suggest taking the time to build a support for the phone at en equal height of the microscope before attempting to use.Working around these quirks keaves you with a very impressive magnification level for $20 and surely lots of good fun. The fact that they use a very common AA size battery is a great design choice. Previous pocket scopes I've owned used tiny watch betteries which is a major hassle...so the design team did great here.

My photo shows the three other mini loupe/scopes that I have, mostly for inspecting knife edges: about 15x, 45x, and 60x respectively. I also have an inexpensive digital microscope. I thought that this Carson scope would bring 2 to 4x more resolution than the 60x, without the setup complexity of using the digital scope.It never came close! The quality of the Carson's optics were so poor that my estimate was that I could resolve more detail with the 45x, and it is much easier to use and shows you a more usable field of view. Even when perfectly focused, and it is very difficult to get focused and only has a very narrow focus plane, the Carson is still quite blurry because of the poor quality optics. The phone cam clip does function, but it does not hold tightly enough to let go of either the phone or the scope, so it is very difficult to get any decent shot, and when I did they were still blurry so I just discarded them.I rarely return anything, especially something this inexpensive, but this Carson scope was just so bad that I could not stand the thought of them getting any of my money for it, even though they will probably just ship my return out to someone else that doesn't know that there are better options out there.I was tempted to include some of the decent shots that I have from my digital microscope, but I am afraid that someone would think that they are from this Carson.I am just going to stick with the small scopes in my photo for blade inspections, and the digital scope for when I need an image.

Firstly, I'd like to mention when I received my order yesterday that the one I got was used and missing the clip. I submitted my request for a replacement and let me say, in just under 24 hours later, I already got a new replacement. I have NEVER experienced such rapid and hassle free service. Amazon amazes me more every day!And so on with the product. I am definitely giving this a 100% positive review. When I saw it on Amazon, I thought it would be something my grandson would like. After looking at others, this one seemed the best for the price.I had a such a hard time putting it down, I spent hours using it this morning!!The microscope is built sturdy, slim enough for your pocket, purse, or hand, big or small. The functions are all easy to use. And when I used it on my phone, I was even more impressed. I have not tried the slide yet, but I can only guess based on what short time I have played around with it, that will be a favorable feature as well.As for the price, I did get it on sale, but I believe even full price it is worth it. So much that I will be keeping this one and not only ordering another for my grandson, but also for my high school aged son and my husband, who both want one too!