While I wouldn't say this is a lab quality microscope, this is a lot more sophisticated than the one I had as a kid, probably for around the same price (taking into account inflation).
There's a lot that this microscope has that are higher tier features and they're very helpful.
For one, it's got an adjustable pupillary distance. However, it does not have a diopter adjustment which I was surprised by.
The entire stage doesn't move, but the clips holding the slide on the stage do, controlled with knobs for X and Y. A moveable stage is better, but this works.
It comes with a light on both the top and bottom. The light on the top doesn't really work for the 40X and higher lens because the lens is too close to the object. And it's a single light so it casts shadows. It would be better if there was a pair of lights mounted on flexible stalks. The lights do have adjustable brightness with a knob and the light underneath also has an adjustable aperture. I feel like they could be brighter. You can run the light off batteries or plugged in.
There's a coarse and fine focus and these work well and smoothly.
In addition to the normal eyepieces, there's a third slot for a camera, and the microscope comes with one. It also comes with a mini-CD with the software and instructions that suggest overriding your virus software if it detects a virus. Um, no thank you (and I haven't had a CD drive in years). The camera is USB and just plugging it in caused it to be treated as a camera and I could open any video app to use it. It worked pretty well. As expected the depth of field is very, very small. See the attached photos of the provided leaf slide, a color print at different magnifications, and the scales of a moth's wing.
The microscope comes with two 2X inserts and you can use one of these with the camera, although the diameter isn't quite right and it's very loose. But it does work and gives you more flexibility with the camera which is helpful.
A few things I didn't like - the eyepieces felt incredibly cheap. They're plastic and lightweight and wobble a bit in the microscope. The eyepiece housing is also plastic, as are the focus knobs. The main body of the scope is metal and it would have been nice if these pieces were metal too. I've already mentioned the lighting. While the eyepieces definitely offered a clearer view than the camera, the camera image was brighter so it worked better for some things. The camera picture was not as crisp as it could be and a bit grainy. I've already mentioned the light and the missing diopter adjustment. The higher range of magnification is hard to use (impossible for top lit specimens), there's so little depth of field and the fine focus is just a bit sticky.
The included accessories are great - there's some demo slides and a slide preparation kit, two pairs of eyepieces (10x and 25x) plus a 2X adapter, and a simple cellphone mount for taking photos/video that way too.
Overall, I think this is a nice tool of good quality. The biggest flaws (poor top lighting and a mediocre camera) could be remedied with add-ons as you need. I think this would be great for middle school age range and up.
It comes with an instruction book, but it's just something printed on a printer (and the color toner is running a bit low I think) and stapled together. Not very professional, but at least it's something which is more than you sometimes get.
My experience with the case is mixed. I like that it's a soft, lightweight case. I don't feel like the foam is going to stand the test of time though. The scope doesn't always easily come out of the foam and it doesn't seem very durable.