Working with electronics requires using a multimeter almost every time you want to put your skills to use or maybe you need to check the wiring around the house therefore you need one. Multimeters range in terms of price, capabilities and build quality in a lot of ways. You can do fine with a cheap $10 multimeter or you can buy a pretty good one at around $60. Now I thought I would find something that has a good price and also enough features to show off and I did.

The BSIDE ADM08A definitely fits my needs and it definitely has a good enough build quality for the price. The contents of the box are the following:

Multimeter + protective cover

Probes

Manuals

In terms of measurement the multimeter has no problem giving the right values. Resistance, voltage, current everything works within the specs. I didn’t get to try the frequency and duty cycle functions but if I do I will definitely give an update. Some cool functions it comes with are the non contact voltage tester and the live functions which are essentially the same thing but the NCV function does not require you to use the probes to see if there’s voltage near an outlet or appliance. It’s a very useful function if you’re working a lot with power outlets.

A few things to notice are:

Don’t measure your outlet’s frequency with the Hz setting. If you wan’t to measure the frequency of your wall outlet you need to do it through the AC Voltage setting by pressing the SEL button and selecting the Hz setting from there. Make sure the probes are inserted into the meter good enough. Apparently in my case the COM probe sometimes slides up a bit from the port and the measurement is simply not showing.

The build quality of this multimeter is just perfect. It doesn’t make any cracking sounds that would make me doubt before pluging it into the outlet and it feels robust and well built. Both current measuring connectors are fused (i checked by opening the multimeter) and the traces, inside the meter, that go to the mains voltage are tinned which makes it a bit more safe.

It comes with all the other basic functions of a multimeter like measuring capacitance, diodes, transistors and continuity. It has a backlight on the screen in case you need it and a hold function. Something that was interesting was the fact that some functions have autorange. For example the capacitance measuring functions is autoranged same as the frequency. I wonder if they could’ve added that feature for the rest of the functions since it’s there already.

The price of the meter is around $27 and I personally think it’s more than a fair price for what it can do. From my point of view this multimeter has enough to offer for any electronics hobbyist and for home use from time to time. If you’re interested in ordering this multimeter here is their website.