Agilent BioTek Gen5 Software for Detection by Agilent Technologies

"I am very pleased with my experience using the Gen5 software thus far. I find it to be incredibly user friendly and it enables me with the flexibility to do just about anything I want to do in my assays. I highly recommend this software to other research laboratories."

"The Gen5 software has been pretty easy to start working with. We never got the formal training, but managed to sort out the basics of running the instrument without too much difficulty. Purchase the instrument and software based on advice from colleagues at my former institution. We haven't had any major issues with the software."

"The software is a big upgrade from the KC4 that Biotek had. But it is still not up to the mark. Using the program is not at all intuitive and one needs to spend a bit of time to start. I have used a bunch of biotek instruments with gen5, while the biotek readers are great, the software lets them down. Sometimes the instrument will need a complete restart! Programming to do your runs isnt simple too. Don’t even start about data analysis once you get them out. I always have to go back to trusty old excel."

"Many features of the software are not intuitively obvious, and getting the software to do what you want requires a fair amount of trial and error. Help is available online, but the instructions are geared more towards refining settings rather than building a protocol from scratch. An actual instruction manual that can lead a new user through the steps of protocol design might be more useful than a "help" button on each screen. With that said, service has been very good. A field rep has been out to visit us twice and was very helpful getting us started. "

"I wanted to see more on-site test programming assistance. I am a little disappointed to learn that bio-tek does not provide test programming instructions for the EPOCH reader because of possible liable. After calling tech support to request programming instructions I was informed to follow Gen5 instructions to program the EPOCH reader. Other tests manufactures are usually willing to provide assistance with their products until their system is fully validated on site."

"I got Gen 5 as an inescapable accompaniment to a new multi-wavelength BioTek plate reader to replace my old four-wavelength BioTek reader. Both readers are great; they are reliable workhorses. But after trying to learn Gen 5, I gave up on it and went back to my old "Eager" software that came with the first plate reader. Gen 5 might be worth the investment of time to learn its complicated structure if I was running routine assays all day every day. But my main use is with a different plate map for every plate, and Gen 5 wasn't as eager as "Eager" is to accommodate that. Moreover, I have freshman students in an inquiry-based lab also using the plate reader, and in the limited time they have to learn the software, Gen 5 is very far beyond their ability to comprehend. In contrast, most of them can use the "Eager" software after one demonstration and a bit of hands-on practice. I hope that I NEVER have to switch from Eager to Gen 5!"

"It's a great device."

"I could not do my research without it. Together with my BioTek Synergy 2, it is the central piece of equipment in my lab. The software is versatile, allows programming for very different assays, from a short b-galactosidase assay to a week long assay with acquisition of absorbance and fluorescence for growth and gene expression monitoring. The "power export" feature, where your data is exported (with your choice of format) to Excel is extremely useful. "

"As a high-throughput oligo synthesis core lab, we rely heavily on our BioTek Epock plate reader and the Gen5 software for nucleic acid quantitation. The software interface is well designed and easy to use yet flexible enough to export data into our LIMS. The company's responsive tech support and knowledgeable support staff exceeded our expectations. During the past four years of constant use, the Epoch and Gen5 software have performed flawlessly. I would not hesitate in recommending this platform to my colleagues since no other package offers such value in that price range."

"The Gen5 software provides a streamlined workflow via step-by-step commands even for complex assays and calculation modes. The software provides comprehensive data deduction and powerful analysis for application used in our research such as kinetic assays, screening, curve fit or multi-labelling experiments combined with all possible detection techniques such as absorbance and fluorescence. We consider this software to be a powerful tool and easy to use for all major applications within our research and have recommended it to other research labs. "

"This is great software, awesome support with great machines at a great price!"

"The Gen 5 is easy to use. It makes doing microplate assays much easier. The ability to make your own protocol is nice and pretty easy. A pdf of quick steps to do this would be nice though."

"The Gen5 Software is very user friendly."

"After getting used to the new program Gen 5 is great for analyzing the data. I would recommend this product."

"I have found that the Gen5 1.11 has been helpful in data gathering and analyzing .We use it on a daily basis and find it user friendly. I have had problems that I could not figure out and the technical support walked me through every step to resolve the problem. It is an easy program to use and can be utilized for far more applications that I require at this point. I am quite content with Gen 5."

"We have the BioTek ELx808 ELISA reader and Gen5 software. It all works for our lab. We have only received great service."

"The software is intuitive and easy, which is a rare exception to the rule."

"I am fan number 1 of this software. I started in 2010 using Gen5 in the laboratories of the institution where I work. And thanks to Gen 5 I managed to change the use of the software I was using before, which was unfriendly and was in DOS. I have needed to calculate the median of four optical density values and have not been able to make that calculation in the previous software. I have not managed to have compatibility between a protocol created by Gen5 2.0 when I install it on another computer that has the Gen5 1.10. "

"We have purchased two Biotek MTP plate readers for high throughput enzyme assays in our laboratory. We are very happy with the flexibility and ease of use of the Gen5 software. In particular, data is readily exported to other software platforms for analysis and presentation. I would highly recommend both the Biotek Synergy 2 MTP reader and the Gen5 software for any colorimetric and fluorometric based assays."

"This is very efficient software! "

"We demo-ed three potential enzyme analyzers from several companies, and the Biotek microplate reader gave the best accuracy and precision. The Gen5 software was also fairly easy to use, without losing functionality. As a first-time microplate user, it would have been useful to get some background information on the different types of plate, what applications they are used for, and the reasoning behind choosing one type over another (different well count, flat vs round bottom, etc)."

"The new Gen5 2.3 is quite easy to use. I used a previous version of Gen5 1.07, but I like the newer version for ease of use. I like to create standard curves and have Gen5 calculate the actual values from absorbancies. The one problem I have with the program is that there has to be a read step after shaking a plate. Most of the time I just want to shake the plate, then incubate for a period of time prior to reading the plate. This does pose a problem for some of my less computer friendly co-workers, and they often get confused about this step. I have called numerous times and received great help with this program."

"The Gen5 is an improvement from the previous software version. It took lab members less than 10 minutes to become adept at settings. When one of our hard drives crashed, BioTek sales and services quickly sent instructions for removing and adding the software. I would recommend Gen5 to others, but it would be beneficial to have an extra application code."

"This is much better than the previous version of the software."

"This software provides endless opportunities. We use very little of the functionality built in but it is nice to have it for future options. I’ve never had any issue with the program and it exports data as required. Wouldn't hesitation I would buy it again!"

"The software is very intuitive and simple to understand, easy to use and navigate."

"Gen5 is very easy to use. It is also very fast and you can save your data on a friendly format (excel) that allows rapid processing of the data. I would never go back again!"

"Customer service was not helpful when we had questions about programming protocols, and the existing parallelism protocols. The program is not totally intuitive, but with some use it is not difficult. It came free with our plate reader, so for 0$ it's valuable! I'd recommend this to a friend, but a more helpful manual and customer service should be in the works. "

"This is an impressive machine. The synergy H1 and Gen5 combination ticks all the right buttons in terms of ease of use, flexibility and high throughput. The best part, the students LOVE it! So far, it is worth the price tag."

"It is good stuff. It works fast and would recommend it to a colleague for sure. It’s so much cheaper than other products and so much better, because with the Take3 Plate you can measure 16 or 48 samples with only 2µl at once. It’s not only for DNA/RNA and Proteins; it’s for a lot of more applications. The service is perfect. "

" This software is easy use."

"The software is very easy to deal with and handy. Moreover it has got a lot of options and flexibilities which facilitates easy design for different experiments. The service provider here in Bangladesh is very helpful and provided every kind of help and is easy to reach. The price is reasonable and the money invested has really been made worthwhile after the all the contributions it has brought to our laboratory service. Yes, I would like recommend all of my colleague in the field Immunology and molecular biology. To be honest I had no idea about it before the purchase of it. However, we had training both locally and Singapore after acquiring it. "

"Software is intuitive but isn’t easy to program the blanks or controls. To use the mathematical analysis, you will need extensive training."

"The software package is easy to use, the report options and calculations are appropriate. The software was included with plate reader, and it looks like a good value for money ratio. I would recommend it in general. We had no problems with support (updates). Although there are two things that need to be improved: 1. sometimes the software loses the communication with the reader, and there is no way to re-establish it during the long run (kinetics). 2. The time interval for automatic turn off the lamp needs to be introduced."

"Sometimes the reader software doesn't recognize the plate reader; usually the issues is associated in recognizing what port the reader is connected. Software updates would be welcome to fix some bugs."

"Challenging to learn all the features of Gen5, but the level of control over the data acquisition protocols and the data reduction procedure is great. The audit trail is valuable. I've not had much interaction 'after sales', but BioTek has provided useful sample protocols which helped us customize our protocols. I think Gen5 is a terrific tool, and am ready to upgrade to the latest/greatest version..."

"I was forced to upgrade due to computer upgrades to Win 7. It has been somewhat painful to create new assay profiles from those that were used in KC Jr."

"Most of the time it works great. The sales manager David Kurtz is truly helpful and knowledgeable about the product. The platereader stopped functioning after 7 months, the process of repairing was not uneventful but with the extra help from David it got repaired in about 6 weeks, although the problem was not clearly identified. Another issue we noticed was that the temperature seems to be not quite accurate, especially at higher than 37 degrees, based on our growth assays of several strains."

"Ok for our use, we are only a small lab and found it a bit quirky to set up but once it was set up it is functioning adequately for our requirements. Have shown it to others and they have found it useful. I would have liked a bit more advice on setting up at the start, although the manual was fairly easy to follow. When exporting data to Excel, you can't enter any extra data into the spreadsheet, such as plate numbers, until all your results are in, otherwise you need to use a separate spreadsheet. "

"I have previously used Biotek instruments, so I was already familiar with their software. I found the Gen5 Data Collection and Analysis software to be similar in organization and ease of use as previous versions. Furthermore, if I had any questions in regards to the software, I found the manual to be helpful."

"This is useful for graphs and visualization of data."

"Very easy to use but the technical service isn't the greatest."

"This is a great product for the money and a perfect complement to the BioTek plate reader. Building protocols is a simple process, allowing for automation of everything from basic to complex workflows."

"The software is excellent, but I was disappointed that when we had an annual service contract with Biotek, we were not scheduled for a routine visit."

"Gen5 is the best product of its genre, very easy to use and reliable. Life is easy when it came into my lab."

"The Gen5 Analysis Software is the most intuitive analysis software I have seen for a while. We all understood the software really quickly. The export function directly o Excel is great and so everybody could use it in the laboratory. With the Take3 Module you can measure up to 48 2µl samples. With the Epoch, the Take3 plate and the Gen5 you get a winning team to your laboratory."

"We are really happy with the Gen5 software. It is quick and simple to use. We use it for several applications like ELISA assay, flourometric assay and luciferase assay. Easy to learn and good to make results report. Yes we have recommended it to some of our colleagues for related area use."

"It has a logical interface. It has very good data reduction features, especially in kinetics analysis. Very good help system included in. Many "ready to use” experiments available on BioTek's website."

"I like Gen5 plate reader. It's easy to program and print results."

"The Gen5 software has worked well for our lab, who decided to purchase our own plate reader after the plate reader we were using as a shared venture became overburdened. Ultimately, for our pathogen, it has proved a valuable tool for a variety of conditions, most notably saving immense amount of time in the area of simple, repeated optical measurements of density. This cell counting technology is easily used and the data easily analyzed using the simple export tools, and the programming capabilities of the software have assisted us in developing a set of standard, shared, and saved protocol that have really expedited lab work."

"It has a simple interface with extremely rapid reads. Tech service is excellent, both before and after the sale. When our old reader went down, we didn't even LOOK at another brand."

"We have a Synergy 2 multi-mode plate reader that we use with 96- and 384-well plates for absorbance, fluorescence intensity and fluorescence polarization studies. We are very pleased with the performance of the machine and with the ease of use of the Gen5 software. The machine and software have been easily adapted to our atypical workflows (we do not run the bioassays that these machines are typically deployed for). The machine has quickly become a favorite in our lab and in the department for its hands-off measurement capabilities. User training is also very straightforward: users go from novice to fully operational in half a day. "

"I have been using Gen5 with my BioTek Synergy II for several years now. It is an excellent program that allows me to set up my enzyme assays exactly the way I want. I use my plate reader routinely to do protein concentration assays and a variety of enzyme assays. It has been very reliable with zero down time."

"We purchased a used unit and have no trouble using it. It is very easy for students to manage."

"Great service! The software was bought a while ago and heavily used. When the computer broke down and we got the new one their technical service advised and helped to update software which would work with the new Windows. We got great advice from technical team how to be able to get more than 300 readings, which is the limit for our plate reader."

"Gen5 is easy to use and I have it worked out to do what I need it to do but it has so many features I wonder what I'm missing out on. Our sales follow up by David Coe has been excellent but the tech support has not been satisfactory. There seems to be a disconnection between the tech support people and the questions I have posed to them. They've eventually figured out my problem but it took a lot longer than expected. A more in depth tutorial of the software would be excellent."

"Excellent customer service! The Gen 5 software is very user friendly. I would definitely recommend this product to other scientists."

"This software is very good !"

"The program is easy to use and it is quite easy to make and use new protocols. The ability to run experiments off of existing protocols is streamlined and data interpretation is just a click. We also appreciate the export to excel option and how easy it is to directly export all data neatly to excel. A very good product for conducting our assays. "

"As a new Assistant Professor, I really wanted to get all the equipment I needed while stretching my budget. I was able to get a wonderful deal on a BioTek reader including free Gen5 software. The Gen5 software is very easy to use and it's features help me train students effectively and in a short amount of time. Building a protocol is very easy and straight-forward. BioTek sent a specialist to set-up our plate reader and train us on how to use the software. We haven't needed any "After Sales Service" really but the two questions we've had were answered thoroughly and very quickly. We would definitely recommend this product to colleagues."

"The Gen5 software is user friendly and very comprehensive."

"The software is easy to use after a couple times."

"It is an awesome platform. Plates are easy to set up and modify. Export to excel is a plus."

"We recently brought the Epoch Biotek with the Gen 5 data collection software. We are very happy with the purchase. It is easy for undergraduate and all students to use."

"Gen5 is an easy to use platform with adequate statistical analysis. No follow-up after sale of plate reader/ plate washer/ Gen5 combination. Biotek systems are excellent choices for instrumentation in every day standard laboratories and for use in austere environments."

"This is very useful and intuitive software. "

"I would definitely recommend the GEN5 software for use with Biotek instrumentation. The software is easy to use and the ability to export data to Excel to generate reports is a plus."

"Excellent machine!!"

"Ease of Use - Both the instrument and the software are very user friendly. Software leads you through the steps needed to analyze your samples. After Sales Services - BioTek has been very supportive and eager to answer any questions that we have. Both our sales rep and service rep are great to work with. Value for Money - Getting a multimode detector for not much more than a standard fluorescence instrument is great value for money. "

"It is very easy to use."

"Overall, the software is good at collecting data and analysis results. One point I do not like is that I have to save it after I set the protocol. It is ok."

"I have had good experiences for multiple screens."

"ok"