There are plenty of good brands in the market. Agilent is one of the excellent manufacturers of these instruments. I used to work on Agilent's 7000C Triple Quadrupole Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer (GC/MSMS). It is very good and robust. I am now working on Thermo's GC/MSMS (1310 GC and TSQ 9000 MSMS) and also Thermo's GC/MS (1310 GC and ISQ 7000 MS). Thermo's software known as Chromeleon is very good and so easy to use.

Agree there is lots of good brands. it depends a bit on Your specs and applications.Actually the market is also a bit dynamic there is a few new players I believe.

probably chromeleon is one of the top softwares. I like what You can do with the thermo machines, but if You want to strech it beyong what You can do with an agilent You need to invest into develloping the know how. In Europe the Service for Thermo often sucks. HP is not not that much better ;-).

Shimadzu is an OK choice as well.

Bruker and Waters are trying to get something of the GC-MS market as well. I guess I could continue forever...

Question is also do You need high resolution?

Please look at the following below links which may help you in your analysis:

https://www.perkinelmer.com/category/gas-chromatography-mass-spectrometry-gc-ms

https://www.agilent.com/cs/library/catalogs/public/5991-5213EN_GC_Catalog_Supply.pdf

https://www.thermofisher.com/sa/en/home/industrial/mass-spectrometry/gas-chromatography-mass-spectrometry-gc-ms/gc-ms-systems/single-quadrupole-gc-ms.html

Thanks

I am not endorsing this brand, but Agilent has a huge footprint in analytical labs. It can link itself back to some of the fathers of GC. When you use the MS, it is easily compatible with external libraries.

The answer depends on what you want to analyze. Don't rely on a poll of people on the internet. Popular doesn't always mean best. Please look at all of the vendors (including ours-- @jeolusa) and talk to them about your analytical requirements. Then try to match their offerings and performance against your goals and budget.

I agree with Robert that polling the Internet for suggestions is a very bad way to obtain general advice regarding a purchase of such an important instrument. Some that respond may be biased (e.g represent a manufacturer or have experience with only one system). To determine what might be best for YOU, you should first define what types of samples and methods the proposed instrument will be used for. Next, consider the site requirements (space, gases, electrical, venting...) needed for each system as well as local support options in your area. Request product literature from some of the major brands to familiarize yourself with the options available and costs. If possible, visit their application labs (bring one or more actual samples) to have a demo (and participate in it as much as possible).

Finally, do not forget about including basic introductory training ( a few days for one or two scientists) as part of the package to become acquainted with the software and hardware. Note that I wrote "acquainted with". It takes many years to learn to become proficient at using these analytical instruments to run samples (so the operators should be experienced users), but everyone will benefit from a few days time with the manufacturer to quickly get up to speed on setting up, Venting/Power up/Shut down, and where the most needed settings are in the software.

Dear ladies and gentlemen out there who took your precious time to share your thoughts as reply to my question, thanks a lot and i really appreciated..Our intended purpose of getting this instrument is to analyse active content of 2,4-D in their various forms.. Currently we are analysing using HPLC which detects as 2,4-D acid and expressed in its respective salt form by unit conversion. This method is somehow lack selectivity.. So by using GC MS we hope to improve the selectivity for an accurate determination

Agilent series has never dissapointed if you can land your hands on a tripple quad even better

Are you using HPLC/UV only or LC-MS, or LC-MS/MS? Using MS/MS is the best and most selective approach. You can do this by LC or GC, but GC-MS analysis of 2,4-D requires derivatization.

Robert Cody, I am using HPLC/UV only..

This is a very tricky question. A person who is using a certain brand will always be biased towards that. You should never choose a brand based on public opinion. Be very clear about what you want to do and the type of samples. There are many leading brands and they are all good in their own way. Study the specifications of these brands and select few for a final evaluation. Evaluation should be carried out using specified standards and see whether the brand is meeting the specifications. Finally, get get few of your samples, treated in the same fashion, analyzed on these brands. Study the sensitivity in terms of S/N ratio, MDQ etc. and take a final decision. Another important point to be kept in mind is the after sales support.

More than a brand I normally consider the technical service, because living in an emerging economy o developing country, that it is more problematic that the brand. Good brands with very bad service it is a big problem in the future. Don´t think only in what you are doing today just project your work in order to buy something also that will be useful for the future with your budget. Also think in with type of treatment will be require with the technology that you choose. I do normally 2,4-D in drinking water, rivers, plants and even intoxicated humans. That needs low detection limit and good separation from different matrix compounds. So although I have to derivatized the sample we use GC/MS that have good specificity and LOD.

MS/MS technologies are very good but they double the investment at least.

best

it depends on what you want to analyze and the sample matrix however I would recommend an agilent series.

Shimadzu

You can asked all brands if their GCMS system can measure your compounds in your matrix and solve your analytical problem and they will all say "sure, no problem". Site requirements, all similar, on site training, they will all do it. So I don't agree with William or Victor unless you have very, very specific and difficult compounds to measure.

I currently work with three GCMS brands, Agilent, Shimadzu and Thermo Fischer Scientific.

Stability, maintenance, long lasting, good software (Chemstation, Masshunter), software upgrades, support I would go for Agilent, always. Shimadzu comes 2nd.

Thermo I should say 3rd, but I go for 6th (leave some room for other brands). Spectra not stable (relative intensities all over the place), bad support, Chromeleon software not my thing, although better then XCalibur, costly software bug fixes, need USB dongle to use Chromeleon software.

Dear @ Kanapathy Semaselaun

A lot of thanks for your nice question. Really, it is very important to think- which brand of GC-MS is better to conduct research. I must appreciate your answer. I am working with GC-MS and GC-MS/MS. I have also experience to work with LC-MS/MS .

I think, most of the available brands of GC-MS are good. However, the main thing is to consider: the post installation services. I think, it is very important. Therefore, I request you please try to collect the information that in your country which company provided this post installation service nicely. Then, you may buy this brand. I am working with SIMADJU GC-MS. But I think, rest of the brands are also better, but you have to check the post installation service. Thank you.

Following

Dear @ Md_Choudhury, @ Stephan_Mann,

Thanks a lot for your appreciation and following the answers made by different RG members.

I do agree with @ Alex Van Renesse.

@ Eleuterio Umpierrez service is also a very important factor in Europe. There was a time when I denied buying anything directly from the big names as they were able to deliver good hardware but their service was beyond discussion.- I bought their stuff through small companies that were able to deliver service as well as telephone care within 24 h.

I do agree it depends on what you want to do and what type of system requirements. For what purposes do you want to use it and in what environment? Do you want to buy new with complete service and high uptime/throughput and low downtime? Do you want more recent MS capabilities or just standard MS functions? And what is the budget?

I recently bought a second hand Agilent 6850 GC (low footprint) with 5973N Mass spec for performing general GC-MS operations at home (~EUR 20k, including software, NIST 2014 and spare parts for maintenance). If you buy second handed I advice to pay a little more to at least have it in complete working condition and get some training to learn the system.

Agilent is relatively expensive if you buy new, but the good thing is also a lot of documentation, and second hand market is readily available for complete systems, spares etc...