Veho VMS-001, 20-200x Magnification USB Digital Microscope
Product Description
In the legendary series of educational films from the 1970s, designers Charles and Ray Eames zoom out from a man resting in a park in downtown Chicago, transporting us in minutes to intergalactic space. At the point at which we reach the bounds of human knowledge, they stop… and zoom back in. Only this time, their camera doesn’t stop… surveying deeper and deeper inside his skin, ultimately to the level of sub-atomic particles. Now, we’re not suggesting for a second that this handy desktop 200 x magnification USB microscope will take you anywhere near sub-atomic resolution from the comfort of your own PC, but it will give you a darned good look at your skin, should you wish. Here at gadgetshop HQ we’re huge admirers of Universal Serial Bus technology, as the legion of USB-compliant devices in these pages will attest. And this high-tech microscope, which offers full 1.3Mp resolution, is among the most inventive USB tool we have yet seen. With a host of pro-quality features, including variable magnification, widescreen imaging and a range of image capture options, all illuminated by 4 bright onboard LEDs, the sky (or rather, the world right in front of you) is the limit. Enabling awe-inspiring close-ups, and both still image ‘snapshot’ and full motion video capture, could there be a better way of passing a chill winter’s evening than blowing up one’s own hair follicle to the size of the Titanic? We thought not.
- True 2-megapixel resolution (5 megapixels interpolated)
- Magnification: 20x to 200x
- Video and photo capable
- 8 Adjustable LED Lights
- 2 point ball-bearing metal stand – adjustable Stand foot
I just got one of these as a gift. It’s a lot of fun. I had to get the Mac software from the Veho website – definitely would NOT try to put the mini-CD supplied into my slot-loading CD drive – but once it was installed (just a couple of files to copy) the microscope “just worked” on OS X 10.5. Basically you can capture short Quicktime videos or JPEGs from the camera… it needs a fair bit of light though. Surprisingly small and feels a little delicate but it seems solid. You adjust the focus with the silver thumbwheel on the top, which works well.
One point to note is that it saves files to the root directory of your hard disk, which I’ve emailed them about, that should really be configurable or default to your home directory.
Not sure how often I will find a practical purpose for this but I produce video and photo content for the web so it’s a handy little device, and great fun to play around with. I’m off to find something to take pictures of
Rating: 4 / 5
I guess that this is not supposed to be a technical support forum, but I found all of your reviews very helpful before I bought, to the extent that I decided not to install the product on my main machine for fear of screwing it up, but on a spare Vaio instead.
Sure enough it installed fine, but I then discovered that it stopped my 3G dongle working on that PC. Even uninstalling the microscope drivers did not get it working again.
I won’t bore you with all the diagnostics, but I _really_ got the bonnet (hood) up and was down at the Windows Core API level before I dicovered that the culprit is a program called FixCamera.exe.
You will not see this running in the normal Alt-Tab sequence, but if you go into Task Manager you will see it. You will also find it in the Run section of your Registry.
To prevent the other conflicts you should End Process FixCamera.exe in Task manager.
If you know how to remove it from your Registry you should do that as well, but it does have a habit of coming back.
I trust that 100/100 of you will find this useful
Rating: 4 / 5
I am really impressed with the Veho VMS-001. It is very easy and quick to set-up and is just as easy to use. The stand which is included is anodised metal so looks good as wellas being very sturdy. It holds the microscope firmly once locked making for a clear and steady picture and it employs two ball joints making it very flexible. The microscope itself appears well made and the clarity of the subject is excellent. Focusing is easy though when zoomed in fully you get a bit of handshake when its not in the stand but thats not the microscopes fault. The software is easy to use and there are a good amount of settings you can play with to suit your needs. Overall for under £50 you can have weeks of entertainment before you even consider letting the kids having a go. This could be my greatest ever gadget purchase and if you like gadgets, get it on your Christmas list……see what’s really in that Turkey!!
Rating: 5 / 5
Great little gadget this, brought one for my 7 year old to play around with. You can record video or snapshot photo of what you are viewing which is excellent.
My wife now uses it as she is into antiques and it’s good for seeing hall marks etc
No problems setting up and using.
Recommended
Rating: 5 / 5
Been using this in my lessons (I’m a science teacher). It’s great. The images are good enough quality for the type of stuff we’re doing (you can see cells) and being able to put the images on the smart board for everyone is fab. Video is a bit blurry but good. Only issue I’ve had is saving the video to a usb stick so I’ve only been able to use the video that I’ve saved on that particular computer. I’m sure there’s a way around this though.
Still think it’s excellent and the kids are intrigued!
Rating: 4 / 5