Aside from the RM2235 manual microtome, I’ve used one of these extensively. I’m not sure that anyone in the histology field actually uses the foot petal to automatically rotate the microtome. When cutting samples you need to be able to feel how the specimen is cutting, which you can not if you aren’t manually operating the rotary mechanism. This instrument does provide very smooth, less noisy, cutting action. I really like using these microtomes. Both the RM2235 and this RM2255 work excellently for cutting the specimens we received at Caris Lifesciences.