Review on Huepar LM120A Laser Distance Meter | 393Ft Range | Li-ion Battery & Electric Angle Sensor 📏 | Backlit LCD Laser Measure | High Accuracy Multi-Measurement Modes | Pythagorean | Distance | Area & Volume by Doug Olson

I bought this on behalf of a friend who is having trouble shopping at Revain and not for myself but I've had the chance to play with the device for a few hours. I was very impressed with that. So much so that I'm considering buying one for myself. I've always thought of these devices as expensive toys, but this device changed my mind. I started to see advantages over using a regular tape measure, especially for a person trying to measure long distances. This device has many advantages over its competitors. The rechargeable lithium battery is one of the largest. It's fairly compact, light weight, comes with a carrying case and a small laser target. It also supports different display modes: meters, inches, feet and inches, as well as decimal inches or fractions. Most competitors lack this variety of display options. After a measurement you can switch between the display modes and thus transfer the measured value to the desired mode (and vice versa). This works not only for the current measurement, but also for each saved measurement. However, it should be noted that the screen area for displaying fractions is quite small and many people will have trouble reading fractional numbers (the rest of the numbers are much larger and easier to read). The manual contains only sparse documents. Some of the more complex triangulation modes, and while I thought I understood how these measurements should be taken from the flashing lines in the on-screen measurement mode icon, I still found some measurements difficult to make. I found the device beeped a lot and based on the icon it couldn't take a reading although the laser dot was clearly visible and would have worked fine for a two point reading. . The instruction manual did not help at all to understand the meaning of the beep and why the measurement failed. While I eventually managed to get all of the triangulation modes to work, some of the more complex ones were tricky at best for no apparent reason. Due to the lack of well-written documentation in English, it was not clear if the fault was due to my working with the device or the device itself. In any case, it made some of the triangulation modes almost unusable for me. Luckily, I found these modes esoteric and probably wouldn't want to use them. YMMV. Although I was tempted to give the device one star for this, I decided against it because it has a lot to offer (especially when compared to its competitors). For example, the digital inclinometer far outperforms the bubble level found on many competing devices. Not to be overlooked is its rechargeable lithium cell. Laser devices tend to chew disposable alkaline cells, are expensive, and environmentally unsafe. The rechargeable lithium cell gives this device an insanely high number of measurements per charge (up to 8000, according to the specifications). This allows action to be taken with impunity, knowing that you are unlikely to run out of electrons in the field. However, a disturbing feature of this device (and almost every other) is its red laser. Don't expect to achieve the advertised range of this device outdoors. On cloudy days, half of the advertised range can be achieved; even less when it's sunny. The included laser target can increase the range if you manage to hit it (which will be tricky from a distance). Green lasers are much better outdoors or over longer distances. While green lasers have higher power requirements, lithium cells have reserve power. I would happily trade the number of measurements for the improved capabilities of the green laser. Even if that meant I could get say 2000 readings on a single charge. A green laser would likely increase the range of this device significantly and make it much more comfortable to use outdoors or in bright light conditions. However, I found a cheat. While a red laser can be difficult to spot from afar, especially outdoors, a green laser is much easier to spot. So take a green laser pointer (e.g. 532nm 301 Pointer) and place it under or next to this device to use it as a target laser. This trick, while cumbersome, often (but not always) allows you to find (aim) the red dot of this device. I suspect this will make it easier to hit the reflective laser target that comes with this gauge. While the target is intended to make the red dot more visible in poor lighting conditions, its small size can make hitting it a hit or miss in the first place from a distance. If this device had more competition, I'd give it two stars for the red laser, small faction gauge, poorly written documentation, and a confusing user interface (or frankly dodgy implementation) for some of the more complex triangulation features. Still, it's better than most of its competitors, and it would give only three stars to those reading this review. In a couple of years, however, the competition may be advanced enough to justify a downgrade.