I just got one of these ANENG AN8001 meters. I stumbled across it a on EBAY a couple of weeks back and was interested to see how it compared to the little FLUKE101. There's plenty of teardown photos in the previously posted links so there's no need for me to post any photos of it.
Sizewise it's pretty much identical to the FLUKE101. The AN8001 is a little bit lighter and overall it feels a bit cheaper but then again, it's $14.
Mechanically it feels fairly solid, not quite as rigid as the FLUKE101 but certainly not bad in comparison. The input jacks is not nearly as solid as on the FLUKE though. The AN8001 does have a tilting stand (which the FLUKE101 doesn't) but it's quite flimsy and you really can't push the buttons with your index finger without the meter falling over. But you can easily support the meter with your fingers and press the buttons with your thumb - which I tend to do anyway.
The range switch is fairly snappy with distinct positions but you CAN (ie, if you try to) easily position the knob between two positions. You can do that on the FLUKE101 as well but not quite as easily.
The digits are about 50% bigger on the AN8001 compared to the FLUKE101, which I like. The viewing angle is really good side to side and quite good looking at it from the bottom (ie with it lying in front of you on the bench), it's not that great looking at it from above. The FLUKE101 on the other hand is about the same (really good) all around. The AN8001 does have a backlight (the FLUKE101 doesn't) which is fairly uniform with a bit of a hotspot on the right hand side of the display (where the LED obviously is). The viewing angle, with the backlight on, gets a whole lot worse. Side to side it's still quite good, from the bottom it's OK but you start to see the unlit segments but pretty much anything "beyond" straight on and the digits just disappears.
The continuity buzzer on the AN8001 is MUCH better compared to the FLUKE101. It's latched (so is the FLUKE101) but the AN8001 is a lot faster, probably on par the FLUKE189 etc.
One thing I don't like with the FLUKE101 is the autoranging. It's fairly slow and it keeps bouncing numbers and decimal points across the screen as it goes thru the ranges. The AN8001 isn't much (if any) faster but at least it seems to blank out the digits, does its thing and THEN come up with a number. I don't know, perhaps I'm being picky.
I did a couple of comparing measurments between the two (and a FLUKE189 acting as a "reference"). On the ranges where the 189 has more resolution I've rounded the numbers off to display the same number of digits.------------ DC MILLIVOLTS -----------
FLUKE189 FLUKE101 AN8011
50.26mV N/A 50.31mV
200.3mV N/A 200.3mV
600.5mV N/A 600.4mV
The mV range on the AN8001 is weird. When disconnecting the leads the display value jumps up and then very slowly (as in minutes) bleeds off. Switching ranges back and forth clears it. And re-connecting the leads "instantly" displays the "new" voltage.
-------------- DC VOLTS --------------
FLUKE189 FLUKE101 AN8011
2,499 2,510 2,498
4,999 5,023 4,998
7,50 7,53 7,49
10,00 10,04 9,99
-------------- Resistance ------------
FLUKE189 FLUKE101 AN8011
10.3 Ohms 10.3 Ohms * 10.2 Ohms
14.93k 14.93k 14.93k
1.048M 1.049M 1.046M
* After it's initial autorange dance the FLUKE101 settles on 10.9 Ohms. Then over a period of maby 5 seconds it creeps down to 10.3 Ohms.
------------- Capacitance ------------
FLUKE189 FLUKE101 AN8011
2.35nF 2.25nF 2.27nF
19.8nF 19.50nF 19.70nF
10.85uF 10.72uF 10.82uF
I haven't done any measurements on the ACV or current ranges but if anyone want's to see that, or anything else for that matter, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Disclaimer: I've only played around with the meter for a couple of hours and I've had the FLUKE101 for a little while longer but to be honest I like the AN8001 more than the FLUKE101. The weird thing with the mV range bothers me (so does the weird thing that the FLUKE does on the Ohms range) and the lack of proper input protection and those tiny fuses means I will not stick it across the 3-phase power comming into the house. The FLUKE is good in that regard since it doesn't even HAVE a current range and it DOES have proper input protection.