The question of who invented the microscope isn't easily answered. Some say it was Hans and Zacharias Janssen, others Galileo, but whoever was ultimately responsible it must have been a man. Partly because women generally weren't allowed near anything more scientific than an oven in the seventeenth century, but also because who else is going to invent a device that makes very small objects look very big?

This invention courtesy of Veho is the first USB microscope we've played with for quite some time. It comes with Windows drivers, although the instruction manual states that Mac and Linux software is available upon request. Once the drivers are up and running, the Microcapture software has to be installed, then the microscope plugged into a USB port and you're away.

The microscope is compact, standing at approximately 10cm tall with a 7cm wide base. Its 1.3-megapixel CMOS lens can be adjusted to point in any direction using the movable arm that extends from the polished black metal base. Focusing is achieved using a rotatable cylinder built into the scope's body, and four LEDs embedded around the lens illuminate slides or whatever else is beneath it. The resulting image is displayed in real time in the Microcapture software window.

With a base zoom level of 20x, the VMS-001 can be further zoomed in manually up to a factor of 200x (as long as Microcapture is working in 640 x 480 resolution - any higher than that and the zoom is disabled). At full zoom levels it loses a little clarity and there are a few shimmering pixels evident, but the overall quality of the image is impressive.

It's possible to take a snapshot picture of anything under the scope, and also record video using the VMS-001. Just point it at yourself (or whatever the target), click the capture button and the Microcapture software saves out an AVI file. We found the frame rate was very choppy, but this feature is a bonus extra more than anything.

The Microcapture options screen allows adjustments to be made to the microscope's various settings. For example, the LEDs can be turned off, so when filming yourself you don't have an interrogatory light shining in your eyes. There are sliders to alter the brightness, hue, saturation and sharpness of the image, plus other handy touches like a black and white display mode.

It's a well built scope, too. The adjustable arm and base are solid metal and the ball joints that allow the microscope to be pivoted in any direction are in no danger of wear and tear.

A good quality microscope which is easy to use and produces some pleasingly sharp images, with plenty of zoom power. The zoom isn't quite perfect at maximum levels, and neither is the quality of the video recorded by the VMS-001, but these are minor complaints.