Customer Reviews

Ozeri Pro Digital Kitchen Food Scale, 1g to 12 lbs Capacity, Elegant Chrome

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a great kitchen scale. I have to weigh a lot of meat for homemade sausage. I've never had a scale that would weigh more than about three pounds of kitchen ingredients, so I'm really happy with this scale. I've weighed over ten pounds of meat (plus about a pound of tare for the bowl). That's probably the most I can fit in a steel kitchen bowl without the bowl getting wobbly and tippy. The scale is actually sensitive enough that the numbers start to fluctuate as the bowl gets unbalanced.

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I LOVE:

* I bought this on sale ($12), so I love the price.

* I love the simple means of zeroing out the tare. You can either put your bowl on the scale before you turn it on and it will subtract the weight of the bowl to start at zero pounds, or you can turn it on, place the bowl on the scale, and press the on/off/tare button to zero it out.

* It's simple to cycle through the units of measure: gram, kilo, ounce, or pound. Very cool!

* I don't know if it does this for every unit of measure, but when weighing pounds, the readout is precise to three (or maybe four--I forget) decimal places. That's almost too much information, but it shows me when the tare is off and shows me when the bowl is unbalanced and rocking.

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I DON'T LOVE:

* The picture makes it look like the base is brushed metal. It's not. It's very flimsy plastic. I doubt it will last more than a few years.

* It's hard to turn it off. I guess you're supposed to just leave it on and let it turn itself off. This leads to my next gripe.

* If it automatically times out and shuts itself off, you have to dump out all of your ingredients and start over. This happened twice while I was trimming meat. I dropped the finished meat in the bowl as I trimmed it. But if I waited too long it would timeout and turn itself off. If I turned it back on, it would assume that the whole bowl of meat was tare and zero out. So I had to dump out all the meat and reset the tare. After this happened twice, I just bounced the bowl occasionally if I hadn't dropped anything in recently.

I know a kitchen scale isn't much to get excited about, but I really like this one. I'm just sad that I know it won't last very long.

I liked this scale as first because it was accurate, allowed me to switch between units (which was important to me, since I often use recipes with metric units) and had a functional design. However, exactly three days after the return window for this item expired the scale "died". The on/off button started failing first, the units button followed, then it was only giving me gibberish. Too bad, I liked this scale and I am still sorry that I spent $25 on this piece of junk.

I bought this scale for my wife a little over two months ago after she asked for it to aid in her knitting. It worked fine for a while and then some of the buttons got kind of sticky. Now its dead. Changes batteries to no effect.

No documentation on the unit to find customer service. So back to square one. Probably invest in something high quality to give her for the holiday.

1. The EatSmart Precision Pro Digital at $25 (12/11) and the Ozeri Pro Digital at under $20 scales are IDENTICAL. I have both, having had the Eatsmart for at least three years, and the Ozari I bought as a gift and tested it. One is black with a chrome-finish platform. The other is silver with a chrome-finish platform. The black body looks as if it is black plastic throughout; the silver body finish might possibly have been painted or otherwise applied (It's description says Elegant Chrome, but just the platform and buttons have a chromed finish.) Personally, I prefer the black, available in both brands.

2. The readout is large; you don't need glasses. It is not backlit and is a problem only in a dimly lit room--solved by turning a light on.

3. The clear plastic covering the LED readouts is recessed slightly from the body of the scales. Flour, spices, and liquids could get on the clear cover and in the corners, creating an annoyance and the necessity of occasionally cleaning the recessed edges. The solution I found was to put a strip of clear packing tape over the whole lens area, flush with the scale body and not pushing the tape down onto the clear plastic. Cleaning is now a simple wipe.

3. The auto-turn-off period after registering a weight or momentarily tapping the weighing platform was within seconds of the three minutes specified, and differed between scales only slightly. This lag between registering a weight and auto turnoff is extremely important; do not buy any scale that does not have such a lag or does not specify a similar or longer lag time!

4. For light weights and for a five pound weight they each gave the same accurate results. A nickel (US) is 5 grams even, and can be used as a test of your sample's accuracy, Use one, then use ten, for 5 and 50 grams, and more if you wish. Regardless of WHERE on the platform I placed a stack of ten nickels, the weight registered the same for both scales.

5. Contrary to one popular review of the Ozeri: a) The scale in fact turns off very easily: CLICK THE TARE BUTTON ONCE TO GET THE SCALE TO READ ZERO, THEN CLICK IT AGAIN TO TURN IT OFF! I confess it took me a month or so of using the scale before that pattern occurred to me. b) Treat the scale reasonably and it will last a long time. My Eatsmart version is still going strong.

6. The 5 1/8" diameter platform is sufficient for most uses, but when using a dinner plate to expand the platform size (taring out the plate's weight) I have to lower my head somewhat to "get at" the reading, because the edge of the plate hides the readout, preventing a reading from directly overhead. A larger diameter platform scale at times would be nice, but such would present a problem for convenient cabinet storage. Using a bowl instead of a dinner plate makes the readout easier for large volumes or weights.

7. The scales measure grams in one gram units, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. It measures ounces in units of .05 ounce (1/20 oz.), i.e. .05, 1.0, .15, .20 etc. Pounds are measured in units of .002 pounds. This is as much precision as you could possibly need in a kitchen.

8. The scales work fine with rechargeable batteries. Battery life is reasonable, regardless of the type of AAA battery you use.

9. Both scales came with a book of calorie equivalents.

10. I appreciate the large buttons and the reassuring audible click when they are depressed. Small point, perhaps, but that's how I feel about them.

11. Just the platform and buttons have a chromed finish on plastic. The "chrome" is not hard metal, though the pictures might lead one to think it is.

Things I've learned that you may find useful, though not relevant to any particular scale:
Using a scale guarantees me a consistent cup of coffee. Measuring coffee by volume can be deceptive, depending on the type of grind and type of roast. If kids argue over who is getting the bigger portions of a particular dish, give 'em the scale and let THEM adjust the quantities for "fairness"!* I've found that standardizing on a cup of flour of 4.8 oz works best with most recipes. If you measure by the level cup, you'll find that a "cup" can equal from 4.3 to as much as 5.4 ounces. 2 grams of loose tea equates with most teabags and the cruder measure of one teaspoon, commonly suggested for one to two cups of tea.

*OR, let the complaining child divvy up the food in equal portions, but the non-complainers get to pick before the complainer!

After looking around for different kitchen scales I thought I'd go with this one since it looked the same as other brands ( but not as expensive#. I've been using this scale almost daily for a few days now and there isnt anything negative to say about it, but here are the pros:

1 - Its super easy to clean becuase of its chrome coating # you can easily wipe most things off with a rag )
2 - Its consistent- a nickle weighs exactly 5 grams and this scale gets in on the dot every time.
3 - Its a bargain compared to other scales around this caliber
4 - And its easy to use. Even the tare function.

I bought this scale to measure food for a sick puppy. It worked great at first, but the scale died after 2 weeks, just when it was becoming important to what I was doing. The feel of the scale and use of the buttons, seemed "cheap". I would not advise anyone to buy this scale. From reading the other posts, it seems that 1 month is about the life of this scale, which makes it worthless

I am on a diet and needed a food scale with the unit button on the top so that I could access it easily and swtich back and forth, such as from grams to ounces, when needed. My other scale has the unit button underneath which makes it difficult when I am in the middle of preparing a meal. I think this scale is one of the best buys for the price and am happy with it.

I actually bought this for my son to use in his science project for school, but I ended up using it in the kitchen after. If a product still works fine after a 13 year old tinkers around with it for a few weeks, Its a quality product in my books, and I should note that not many items last this long in the unforgiving hands of my kid. So far, everything is pretty much perfect, and nothing bad to say about it. Its accurate and consistent, and I also love the chrome weighing platform which makes it so easy to clean!

Simple to use, self zeroing when you turn it on. Large display, switch between metric and imperial units with a single click. Very sensitive and accurate. Looks great, works great, and for the price, it's a deal - recommended.

This little food scale is perfect! It will weigh things as light as a handful of chips and as heavy as a frozen chicken. Awesome! I do Weight Watchers and portions are obviously very important so I've found this to be a very valuable tool for me.