I don't need to do a full review on this Brymen BM869. There are three other references to this multimeter series, BM86X, from other sources. The following are detailed examples.
On MJ Lorton's youtube videos, very detailed, but of the BM867.
By iloveelectronics on this forum, a teardown of the BM867.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/brymen-bm-867-teardown-pictures/A rather lengthy review by a former member here.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/brymen-bm869-review-by-the-eye-of-the-industrial-electrician/Instead I will give my personal points that stand out for me.
For me this meter was a no brainer after watching/reading the above reviews. The price was much better than anything else with this build quality and specification. I purchased mine from a company in Poland mainly because I could not find it available to be shipped to me anywhere else. You can read about my experience with this company in this thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/bad-service-endemic-in-the-whole-world-now-anyone-deal-with-tme-eu/ This is definitely a good buy in high accuracy and safe multimeters. My cost for the BM869 was $241 USD, plus $52 USD for the USB data interface, and another $50 USD for delivery to Chile for a total of $343 USD.
It is built very well with thick and tough feeling materials. The Rubber holster is nice and "rubbery" unlike many of the cheap feeling PVC plastic holsters. Everything on the outside of the meter is easy to read and understand. The selector dial is a bit small, but feels pretty good and you can't easily get it stuck between selections. Actually I was not able to get it in between settings. Yes this meter is big and heavy.
On the inside, it matches the quality of the feel on the outside. The layout of the input protection is a little messy, but nothing that makes me uncomfortable. The fuses are both rated for 1000V, so based on everything I can see it matches its CAT ratings. The only thing that might be a shortcoming is that the battery wires run through a hole near the input jack for the high amp range. Is this a problem? I don't think so in this case as this meter comes with a UL rating pass label. I am confident that it actually has been tested and passed its ratings. The Uni-T UT71E has this same battery wire arrangement and maybe it isn't a problem for it neither, but the rest of the meter does not meet its CAT ratings in many obvious ways. If I want to feel safe when using a meter, this BM869 is definitely the one I will reach for.
All of the case seems to be sealed with rubber seals and o-rings. If not water tight, it is definitely very dust proof.
With any test I could throw at the BM869, it appears to be well within specification. It has almost any function I could think an electrician and/or electronics hobbyist could want, and a few more. Dual temperature, dBm with adjustable impedance, conductance, and filtered AC measurement for motor drives are the main outstanding additions to the usual functions. The meter will read its internal temperature if you short out the inputs instead of plugging in a thermocouple. The backlight is OK, not the best but pretty good.
What don't I like? Well, the leads I got are rated CATIV 1000V 10A and have nice soft insulation that is maybe silicone. They have very thin shrouded tips that are nice and sharp. However, they seem to have a high relative internal impedance of 0.12 ohms compared to some Uni-T probes I have that have an internal resistance of less than 0.07 ohms. The cover window for the display is made of really nice thick plastic, but the plastic seems a little soft and scratches easily. The holster has those built in probe holders but I find them next to useless in any work I have done and they add quite a bit of unwanted bulk to the meter.
So my dislikes are niggly little complaints and for the price of this meter they are really insignificant. If you want a truly well built meter that is going to take a bit of abuse, will be safe to use for high energy circuits, and doesn't cost far too much, then get this meter. I will be working regularly on 600VDC plus equipment in a solar installation and I will feel quite confident using it on this and on my electronics projects too.
If you can't find this meter then look for the Amprobe AM-160 as a close relative, or the AM-270 which is less than $90 and appears to built to the same level of quality. These are apparently made by Brymen as their OEM.
Additional Information:
I realized that I had not mentioned a couple of features that are important points.
The first one is that the optional settings for each selector position are remembered after power down. This is very handy for those who prefer to have their own default settings instead of what the manufacturer decides you should have. This is one of the pet peeves of Dave about the Fluke 87V in that it defaults to AC when he would prefer DC.
Second: The amp and milliamp range share the same dial position and the meter auto selects which is active based on what input the probe is connected to.
Third: The auto power off can be disabled by holding "SELECT" while powering on, or the beep can be disabled by holding "RANGE", but you cannot have no beep and no power off at the same time.
I cleaned the tips and the lead resistance dropped from 0.12 ohms to 0.07 ohms. Even though they have a lower resistance than I originally reported, these are not the leads that Brymen supplied in the official review sample to Kiriakos