Thoughts on an entry level scope?

Rigol is simple, ok for school demonstrations maybe, but you will  quickly find it's limits as your skills improve.  An analogue scope with  delayed sweep would be a better first choice.  GW-Instek is reasonable  and well thought out, but the screen resolution is small.  Vertical  resolution with DSOs is usually 8 bits, needing 256 vertical levels to  properly display.  Most cheap DSOs have only 230-240 vertical pixels, so  will always show jaggy waveforms - not very nice.  Currently, the  Hantek DSO1062B, 1102B and 1202B all offer much better technical  performance and cost (see eBay).  Tekway is identical, but probably more  expensive in Aus.  Neither are perfect, but offer more technical  capability, and you won't find their limits as easily.  The 800x480  screen is much nicer to look at all day.  Most low cost and some  not-cheap DSOs, don't have a compression algorithm to squeeze their long  acquisition memory onto the short width screen - you miss seeing stuff  that might be in the memory.  The only low cost scopes with proper display compression systems are GW_instek, Hantek/Tekway.   Don't buy anything with a short acquisition memory, 10k is an absolute    minimum, and much longer is essential if you are doing anything with    serial ports, USB etc.  When you get some experience, the new Agilent  2000 series have good reviews and professional software, but you pay for  that.  Since it's all digital, the quality of internal software matters  a lot to the usability of a modern DSO.

Rigol is simple, ok for school demonstrations maybe, but you will  quickly find it's limits as your skills improve.  An analogue scope with  delayed sweep would be a better first choice.  GW-Instek is reasonable  and well thought out, but the screen resolution is small.  Vertical  resolution with DSOs is usually 8 bits, needing 256 vertical levels to  properly display.  Most cheap DSOs have only 230-240 vertical pixels, so  will always show jaggy waveforms - not very nice.  Currently, the  Hantek DSO1062B, 1102B and 1202B all offer much better technical  performance and cost (see eBay).  Tekway is identical, but probably more  expensive in Aus.  Neither are perfect, but offer more technical  capability, and you won't find their limits as easily.  The 800x480  screen is much nicer to look at all day.  Most low cost and some  not-cheap DSOs, don't have a compression algorithm to squeeze their long  acquisition memory onto the short width screen - you miss seeing stuff  that might be in the memory.  The only low cost scopes with proper display compression systems are GW_instek, Hantek/Tekway.   Don't buy anything with a short acquisition memory, 10k is an absolute    minimum, and much longer is essential if you are doing anything with    serial ports, USB etc.  When you get some experience, the new Agilent  2000 series have good reviews and professional software, but you pay for  that.  Since it's all digital, the quality of internal software matters  a lot to the usability of a modern DSO.