it is worth its price. I strongly suggest to people who have interest in microscopy. Easy setup (actually out-of-the-box ready!) 5 free uniteresting slides, but still good enough to set up your fine tunes.

After returning several different styles of Celestron microscopes this is a keeper. High quality and easy to use. I did notice the bulb attachment does get hot and it has a strange "burning" smell to it but as long as you do not use for long periods of time it should be ok. The other option is to use the mirror as a lighting source. This is strong and sturdy (has a good weight to it). Highly recommended.

I was so excited about this microscope. I read the entire manual and set the microscope up... and it almost caught my house on fire (luckily however, I could smell something burning and quickly shut it off and removed it from where i was working)... I used the electric illuminator provided with it... it gets so hot it poses a fire hazard! there are no warnings regarding this on the product or in the instruction manual... so beware of what you have the light source near or touching.

other than the fire hazard light source... it seems to be a great microscope...

I got this for my 12 year old son...He Loves It and so do I.
The quality of the micr. and the all the details that they put in to make this Make this Micro. #1,,This is so powerful you can see a single hair in great depth all the shafts on the hair ,The quality of the lens are very ,Very powerful..I will give this a AAA+++ FOR EXCELLENT.Also it was very well package I was very impressed! Amazon has won me over!

Solid construction and all the basics. Easy set up for the most part (I had trouble only with setting up the safety stop). The optics are fine for home use, and it's easy to use. The small set of prepared slides was a very nice surprise.

Only two things would make it a little more user-friendly: coarse and fine focus adjustments on the same dial (similar to the stage adjustment), and a switch on the light source.

Overall I would definitely recommend this for the hobbyist; it's a great value for the price.