Hey Ziggy,
I'm not sure what you want to use the microscope for... that will determine what type of microscope to get as I understand it. Microscopes for biology are generally pretty different from microscopes used for metallurgy say.
I was a bit like you I think, I wanted a microscope to play with rather than anything serious, and I ended up finding a USB microscope - the Dinolite. It suits some of the failure investigation work I do at wok as well.
Have a look here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...d.php?p=228075
Al.