Author Topic: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?  (Read 9940 times)

darkman1969

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Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« on: April 07, 2012, 08:06:56 PM »
I would be very interested to see what MJ has to say about this meter.
If he has done a review already, please let me know.

Regards

MJLorton

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2012, 03:05:33 AM »
I would be very interested to see what MJ has to say about this meter.
If he has done a review already, please let me know.

Regards

Hello Darkman1969,

I have not posted a review on it yet but it is a multimeter that has been brought to my attention before. It is in my "to do" list and I will try get to it sooner as it seems to be quite popular.

Thanks for posting,
Martin.
Play, discover, learn and enjoy! (and don't be scared to make mistakes along the way!)

kodai

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2012, 11:47:10 AM »
Everthing I've seen on the UT71 series of multimeters always ends with major disappointment in quality and performance vs the price.  I really don't think that line was intended to be sold outside of China.  In fact, I think most of their other meters are sold outside of China only to subsidize the Chinese sales of their bench meters, oscopes, and the ut71 line of meters.  Just my two cents, but I'm willing to bet that if MJ does a review it will end up showing the meter in a bad light.

Kiriakos GR

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2012, 12:35:12 PM »
UNI-T does not have products that wins any prize about their speed and features.
Even so it is a safe bet at the low priced multimeters.




kodai

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2012, 09:32:35 PM »
I disagree about the whole feature part.  That is why the Uni-T line is a valid option.  Good price for the feature set.  Its the build and design quality on some of their meters (not all or most, just some), that leaves me wondering if they are worth the price after a couple years.  I'm not saying they they should be considered against the upper echelon of measurement devices.  Clearly they are a company that is going for feature set and price.  HP (now Agilent), Fluke, BK precision, and others have a great history with making meters that once can trust over time.  Uni-T has only been in the open market a few years now, but they are gaining a big following.  Great.  I own a couple of Uni-T's and I think I'm getting the value of the price I paid for them.  But what I don't know is just how long will that value last.  Why should any potential customer buy a Uni-T tool when another 20%-30% more cash will net a name brand like Extech that will offer name that stands behind their products. 

Well the obvious answer to that question is this:  to support another company so that we have more options to chose from.  As I said, they are fairly new to the world outside of China.  It will take time to earn a name from measurement confidence and that will only come from design/build quality, and product support.  So far, they seem to have done a fairly decent job on the level of support from what I've read when people have problems with their meters.  But again, some of their meters seem to suffer from quality control issues.  Thats the part that leaves me wondering if they will be around in 5 to 10 years. 

Their 61 series meters has earned some good, though critical reviews.  I own a UT61E and think its a fine little meter.  But as many other 61 series owners have pointed out, they are constantly revising the line with new boards and change of parts on almost every run.  Sometimes they stack multiple parts on each other in one version of a board, then in the next one, they replace the stacked parts with just one component, only to go back to the stacked parts again in a third revision.  There is never a reason to stack components on any commercial product.  If a design has those kind of issues, stop and fix it.  End of story.

The original 60 series, the 70 series, and the 71 series simply have not earned a very good reputation.  Thew few reviews I've seen (videos and blogs) have shown them to be fairly flawed and not well supported.  They seem to be making some headway with the 61 series and I like that.  Their pocket meters seem to offer great value from their decent design/build quality.  I'm really liking what I seem in their 90II series and looking forward to the 90C that MJ is going to review.

In the end, yes I agree that they are a safe bet for their price.  But only on some of their current product lines.  Those that have shown to have significant flaws in design, build, and support should be ignored and another brand sought.  Those quickly turn out to be junk and there is no value in junk.  I can see that Uni-T is really trying to compete in the meter market, and are not just a fly by night company.  Because of that, I will continue to buy some of their meters.  But I want to see some real improvements or dropped lines if need be.  I want them show me that real effort is being made to stay in the market place, and I'll be more than happy to recommend them as a worthwhile tool to friends and coworkers.  As it stands now, I feel like I'm just test driving them.  If I owned a design firm, I wouldn't give my engineers or technicians a Uni-T meter and stake my firms reputation on the output of those meters.  Maybe in 5 10 years when they have had a real chance to show us what they can do, that would be different.     

Kiriakos GR

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2012, 07:50:35 AM »
I am at the age of 43 and at 10 of May the clock will count 44.
My father an freelancer cars electrician, started my training from the age of 10.

Today I value the products by the prospective of the professional technician.
When I turn down a product, it is because it is not that perfect for people like me.

I do respect every different opinion with out necessarily to agree with it  :) 

Elvis O.

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2012, 09:16:20 AM »
I did ownd Uni-T UT71D version just breafly since I did return it. In quick words that multimeter it is not worth 160€ that is for shure. If sombody is willing to watch on my youtube chanell or my blog what I noticed about it fell free to visit them.

To sum all up in fast, multimeter has "false" certification of protection circuit since normal slow glas fuses are not rated for 1kV and things like that, that you can read in EU standard for devices that should be capable of handling that amount of electricity.

Some features like Min/Max is very useless if you have some low voltage circuit since even before you start measuring meter is giving you random min/max values in advace that can go all up to 0.5V.

Most of features on multimeter like min/max and peak are available in 4.000 count mode and not in 40.000 count mode, and that is very "bendly" written when you are buying this multimeter.

Well my advice is to stay away from it.

PS. I did not have and I still dont have any multimeter that I could compare it to except 5$ cheap Conrad one, but luckily I manage to return it back, so now I'm stuck with Conrad one :)

Elvis

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http://electroelvis.wordpress.com/
« Last Edit: June 10, 2012, 09:18:07 AM by Elvis O. »

Kiriakos GR

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #7 on: June 10, 2012, 10:54:14 AM »
Interesting story.
And the great part of those stories are that they made us wiser.

When some one starts to separate the professional tools from the ones that are made for hobbyists,
he is one step forward than the others.  :)

My advice is to start savings, for getting something much better in the Christmas time.


Elvis O.

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2012, 05:05:18 PM »
@ Kiriakos GR: I do have plan to save quite some money and get a really decent multimeter, the one I have in mind is quite overkill for most of users but I do like the data logging graph on Fluke 289, which would come quite handy in project's I have in mind . Well we will see path might even lead me in different direction :)

Kiriakos GR

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Re: Has MJ done a full review on the UT71E?
« Reply #9 on: June 25, 2012, 12:05:21 AM »
At the right timing, we will talk again.  ;)