American Weigh Scales Series Digital Pocket Weight Scale Backlit LCD Stainless-Steel Surface 100g x 0.01g, (Silver), AWS-100-SIL

Got me thru some hard times

Before buying I took a look at the reviews, of course. I was amazed to see so many units sold. And since this is a good response of the market I trusted and went ahead to get one of these.Despite it has 11 bad rated reviews I thought "this thing can't be that bad". As a consummate Amazon.com shopper for so many years now I know that 'sometimes' it is possible to have bad experiences with a product purchased online, where the only tools that help taking the buying decision are some photos and reviews. I know; sometimes it is hard not being physically there at the store to see, touch and feel the product, but with some experience, logic and attention you're able to become an expert online shopper! On the other hand, bad rates ARE NOT necessarily related to the product quality itself but with transportation, sales support, DOA units, lack of the How-It-Works thing, averseness about user guide reading, irresponsible reviewers and etc factors. You gotta be smart and apply your own logical conclusions to see beyond that ugly 1 star review because the product may be good after all. And this is precisely one of those cases, where in addition to the massive sales of this Scale, and the good rates that widely overcome the 4 stars and down ones, bad rates don't harm. Sorry for those users though!One of the poorly rated reviews that caught my attention was one that said that this Scale was inaccurate. Well, I did my own tests and found the opposite. First, the Scale comes factory calibrated. At least the unit I received didn't require any additional adjustment. I weighed coins of specific denominations and searched online to compare and I got even results. In addition to weighing coins of different values, I also weighed coins of the same denomination to see if its weights matched, and was pleased to see IT DIDN'T! They just had only a tiny difference in grams, which is absolutely normal (because some are more worn than others). Then I took note of each individual weight and totalized it in my calculator, and compared the result to the weight of all the coins together in the Scale and it was exactly the same. This was really a simple test, but to me it is more than enough. It was satisfying to see that all the weight results and comparisons were accurate and consistent so I am sure now that when I do real weight works I will get accurate and consistent results as well.The other detail I also liked about this Scale was the battery compartment; it has room for spare batteries! (What device that you know has that? Wow! How convenient!). The construction of the unit is good (looks strong, well-built and looks cool too). Despite the lid looks a bit fragile initially (the hinges are kind of loose), after few uses you get used to it and becomes somewhat normal (nothing to worry about).Accessing the control buttons is very comfortable, and I really love the availability of different weight measures (gr, oz, ct, gn, ozt, dwt). Ahem, plz excuse me..., this is my first Scale!; I didn't know it was just a conventional function! ;-)Just noticed a small inconvenience about the LCD screen; it does not provide a clear reading at inclined angles, which is how you look at it when you place the Scale e.g. on your desktop. You have to look at it 'almost' perpendicularly (I'm exaggerating on this) to clearly read the info. But I think this is a matter of custom, not worth taking out a star for this fact.Has auto off which is very convenient.And finally, some reviewer wrote that s/he received the unit with leaking batteries. Well, yes, unusual and annoying!, but that can happen even with the most costly devices that (surprisingly) come with batteries! So you better check the batts as soon as you receive your unit to verify that everything is ok.In conclusion, cheap products are usually a bloody disaster (again, exaggerating). But hey, honestly, I am glad to say that THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM! As my title says, this is a pretty decent Scale. Sure there are better (with considerable higher prices), but what you get for this price is an absurd bargain!Greetings from Colombia,JAS

Had this for over 10 years now and still going strong. So easy if you know what you’re doing. Always accurate. Will last as long as you take care of it. Ideal pocket size.

I bought a series of weights to test the accuracy of the scale. It was correct out of the box from 1 gram all the way up to my heaviest weight of 500 grams. I use this daily to weigh my loose leaf tea. 5/5 stars

Weighs well. Accurate, comfortable for pocket. Easy to use and calibrate. Plastic, so not the most durable.

product was as decribed, would buy again!

Right on the money simply the best scale ever hands down been using this brand for 15 years

I mistakenly ordered a fifty gram weight to calibrate this scale with and learned the hard way that I needed a five hundred gram weight to accomplish this.But I should start at the beginning here... When the box arrived, I opened the box and turned the scale on and it began to give weird readings. Nothing was on the scale to be weighed but the screen kept showing readings from .8 to .4 to 0 to .4 ...I assumed that the thing needed to be calibrated so I followed the easy instructions inside the lid of the scale and began the easy calibration steps. The only problem was, I only had a 50 gram calibration weight and you can ONLY calibrate this scale with a 500 gram weight.Once I had begun the calibration procedure, using the incorrect weight, the scale was locked in the calibration mode and I couldn't do anything with it. Disgustedly, I called the manufacturer for technical support. The support tech was polite and helpful but the only recommendation he had was that I order the correct weight or take the scale to a jeweler and see if they would calibrate it for me. I was really disgusted at this point.I did a search on Google to see what I could use instead of the proper weight and learned that 100 nickels weigh 500 grams. So I went through my coin jar and counted out 100 nickels into a plastic sandwich bag. I used this to calibrate the scale and then tested the scale with the 50 gram weight that I had. It was off by a smidge so I added a little piece of cardboard to the bag of nickels and recalibarated the scale again and tested it with the 50 gram weight again. I had to do this a few times but eventually got it right.The scale works perfectly now and I really like it. It's accurate. It's compact. It has a nice protective cover. It uses AAA batteries instead of button cells. It turns itself off after several seconds to conserve the batteries. It's easy to read.Moral of the story here: Buy the correct calibration weight -- 500 grams -- or get lots of nickels. I'm glad that I at least had the 50 gram weight to test with. Otherwise I would have been running all over the house looking for products that are weighed in grams to test the calibration with.