Bresser Junior 40-640x Zoom Microscope

This white Bresser Junior is a compound microscope for a first look at slides, sold on its own or with a 75-piece experiment set. The two share the same microscope; the difference is what comes in the box, set out at the end. It's lit from below only, so it's for thin things light can pass through, such as onion skin, a strand of hair, pond water on a slide and the prepared slides supplied.

Three objectives, 4x, 10x and 40x, sit on a revolving turret and give up to 400x with the eyepiece at its lowest setting. The eyepiece zooms from 10x to 16x, which takes the top to 640x without changing anything else, and a child can turn it slowly to watch the detail grow. A focus wheel moves the stage, two clips hold the slide, and a wheel under the stage combines apertures and colour filters for contrast on very pale samples. Two AA batteries power the LED and are included.

Both versions come with a smartphone adapter for photos through the eyepiece. The standard kit has prepared slides, blank slides and cover glasses, a slide box, a MicroCut for slicing thin sections, tweezers, a pipette, a magnifying glass, a magnifier box and a measuring cup. Our guide to using a microscope shows a child how to set up a first slide.

The experiment set version has 20 prepared specimens, each with a QR code that links to notes about it, 12 small stones with their own codes, a butterfly wing, five sample vials, a brine shrimp hatching kit with eggs, yeast and sea salt, a scalpel, a petri dish and eyecups for glasses wearers, and Bresser lists an aluminium and plastic body for it, 720 g all in. The coloured Junior 40-640x below it has the same magnification with a brine shrimp kit as standard. The Junior Biolux SEL above it adds a light over the stage for solid objects, and our microscopes for kids are listed together.