The ph meter being digital is much more accurate than a analog dial. It can be slow to respond, I stick it in the soil I'm testing wait about a minute for it to stabilize then do several areas and go by the average. It could use a nutrient reading on it like some others, but on the other one I tried it was very dubious as to the accuracy. Soil that I knew to be good it said wasn't that good, yet our crops are growing great, even better than last year at the same time. But I was mostly interested in the ph values so it fills my needs.