Hi, my name is Andreas, I'm new here.
I'm a hobbyist from Sweden, not too serious at the moment, but I hope to get more active in the near future.
I've watched the odd show or two before and always found them entertaining, but I got really hooked now that I was shopping around for a decent multimeter.
I've got a dying DVM891 that needs replacing and didn't feel like wasting money on something like that again, so this time around I did some research.
I first considered getting a Uni-T 61 or 71 locally, but looking at some of the videos, the lack of attention to safety and detail gave me second thoughts.
Then I saw the Brymen 257 (I think in the $100 shootout vid), and that looked like very good bang for the buck.
I went to tme.eu to pick one up only to find they were sold out.
Browsing around a little for other Brymens, I spotted an 827, which I hadn't heard of before, so I started looking into it a bit.
It's about €118, nearly the same as an 857A, and only about €20 more than the 257.
It looks to be somewhere in between the 257 and 857A feature/specs wise.
The full specs are available at
http://www.brymen.com/product-html/cata820/BM820_Catalog.pdfI couldn't find much of second opinions on the web for it, but looking at the positive response for other Brymens, I figured they have consistent quality and they seem to pay attention to detail.
After some debating with my self about the 257 vs 857A vs 827, I pulled the trigger on an 827. It's on it's way to me right now, so I haven't seen it in the flesh yet.
For my needs I felt the usability features (dual display mainly) on the 827 won over the better precision of the 857A.
The features/differences that stood out to me compared to the 257 and 857A were:
0.08% + 2 counts VDC
Bigger than a 257 (208X103x65.4 mm)
Dual Display
10000/6000 counts (I only discovered it's not 10000 across all ranges as I was typing this up)
No "AutoCheck" (coming from a manual I'm probably not going to miss it)
10 pF - 25 mF capacitance range
No Backlight (never had one, not gonna miss it)
5 / 60 Hz display / bar update
Cat IV 1kV
AC True RMS
EF detection
Duty cycle
From the looks of the PDF, it's supposed to have a "fast" continuity meter and auto ranging, but I suppose that could mean anything in sales-speak.
I do hope the continuity is latching though. I'm betting on it being newer it would be more similar to an 257 than an 857A.
The "big brother" 829 shares the autocheck features with the 257, so I figure it's not impossible that it has the same good continuity test.
TL;DRHas anyone tried one of these out?
Did I make a mistake not to go for the 857A or 257?
I have a gut feeling I'll be very happy with this, but since I'm used to the DVM891 (cheap crap), anything decent will probably seem brilliant in my eyes
![Roll Eyes ::)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif)
I would have gone for the 829, but it's almost €50 more again, that just felt too steep for the few extra bells & whistles.
I may miss the dBm mode for audio stuff, but oh well...
I'll report back with my impression once it gets here, but as I'm not very experienced it's just going to be scraping the surface I suppose.
If there are no pesky warranty stickers, I'll probably pop it open for some photos though
![Evil >:D](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/evil.gif)
/Andreas