Comparative Analysis of Respective Advantages and Disadvantages Between Analog and Digital Multimeters
A pointer multimeter is an average value instrument with intuitive and visual reading indication. (Generally, the reading value is closely related to the pointer swing angle, so it is very intuitive).
A digital multimeter is an instantaneous style instrument. It uses sampling every 0.3 seconds to display measurement results, and sometimes the results of each sampling are only very similar and not exactly the same, which is not as convenient for reading results as pointer based methods.
A pointer multimeter generally does not have an amplifier inside, so the internal resistance is relatively small. For example, the MF-10 type has a DC voltage sensitivity of 100 kiloohms per volt. The DC voltage sensitivity of MF-500 model is 20 kiloohms per volt.
Due to the internal use of operational amplifier circuits, the internal resistance of digital multimeters can be made very large, often at 1M ohms or greater. (i.e. higher sensitivity can be obtained). This makes the impact on the tested circuit smaller and the measurement accuracy higher.
Pointer multimeters have low internal resistance and often use discrete components to form shunt and voltage divider circuits. So the frequency characteristics are uneven (compared to digital), while the frequency characteristics of a pointer multimeter are relatively better.
