Wanted: the Ultimate Multimeter for Electricians and Technicians.

[vk6zgo]

We had a Fluke 8020B at the transmitter site & it was a pig to use.
The side pushbuttons were hard to operate one handed.
Later,everybody got Fluke 77s in their kit,which,with the offset rotary knob ,were a dream to operate one-handed.

The auto-off on the 77 would not operate if you were actually taking measurements,whereas some later meters quite happily turn the thing off,just as you get set to take a reading.
Another delight I ran into with some early UNI-T meters is that,long before the "low-battery" symbol came up,they started to give nonsense readings on the Resistance range.
That is definitely not a feature you want in your proposed meter!

[Galenbo]

In this case that meter has to either not have current measurement or have it clamp only. I've seen tons of hardware store-bought multimeters killed by measuring current of wall socket or car battery. Most non-EE savvy people don't understand how measuring current works and short out first voltage source they find.

True, a multimeter without Amps measurement has it's advantages, even for experienced technicians who know what it's all about.

[Galenbo]

The Keysight/Agilent have this :
http://www.conrad.com/medias/global/ce/1000_1999/1200/1280/1281/128109_AB_00_FB.EPS_1000.jpg

https://www.conrad.de/de/hand-multimeter-digital-keysight-technologies-u1231a-cat-iii-600-v-anzeige-counts-6000-128109.html

Grrr still that rotation knob...

[Lomax]

Grrr still that rotation knob...

How about this one, from venerable German Testo:

[RoGeorge]

This one was can be hang from a belt, also it has push buttons:

[Lomax]

This one was can be hang from a belt, also it has push buttons

That is one beautiful multimeter! But £600? Just a little outside most people's budget. Then again, I guess you get what you pay for, to some extent - and it is manufactured in Europe.

[Galenbo]

How about this one, from venerable German Testo:

Not bad at all, but it costs 150 euro...

[Muttley Snickers]

Like many others I do like the look of the Testo meters but they are rather expensive down here, anyway it would appear that they may be prone to magnetic fields according to this recently uploaded video, I'm yet to own one.   

[M. András]

i do own the 770-3 model its their clamp meter, im statisfied with the tool for daily use as an electrician, the lcd does not like cold at all apart from that i didnt find any problems with it so far, its expensive but you cant deny the innovation of their automatic function sensing feature, and you can hold these in relatively small hands with ease and still be on the safe side of the engineering of the meters unlike most chinese ones, pretty labels and such but i would not trust my life with it

[salbayeng]

GalenBo ,
I do sympathise with your desire for knobless meters,  the only pushbutton meter I have is a smd tweezer meter.
There was a nice meter made by Philips? years ago with some sliders that were easily moved with your thumb.
Another useful feature (missing on your "ideal" multimeter) is having the volts and common spaced 19.4mm apart, then you can plug in a double prong banana plug.  Or a shunt with a 1.000ohm resistor , some back/back diodes and a 470uF capacitor  (this gives a better result measuring mA).