The USB Microscope Lives on as QX5

Rather than let the classic QX-3 USB microscope from Intel die, Digital Blue has secured the rights to continue producing the widely-adopted toy and has even upgraded with higher quality components in the form of the QX-5. Along with the CMOS sensor's increased resolution of 640x480, the framerate is a much heartier 15 frames per second, nearly triple that of the original.

Three levels of magnification can be used in conjunction with the LED backlighting, at 10x, 60x, and a whopping 200x, although image quality is slightly hampered by the plastic lens. At the same time, this opens up the route to taking a closer look at substances that would etch an ordinary glass lens. Unfortunately the QX-5 works only with Windows out of the box, although Apple users can purchase a CD-ROM that supports MacOS X 10.2 and higher.

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