It is good to know that those Chinese HR-150’s are still less than a thousand. One needs to remember that they are a Chinese knockoff, but I used one for well over ten years without any issues at all, and I really
use hardness testers. If I was down and out and needed a tester I don’t think I would hesitate to get another one. But when it wore out on me there was no getting it back in calibration, so even though it was good for the long haul it was, in the end, disposable.
Not everybody can score a cheap Wilson unit, but when I did mine was pretty old and out of calibration, but the difference was that it took very little to refurbish the Wilson have it back to spot on, and I will probably be using the rest of my life.
In no time at all I went through two expensive, brand name angle grinders. The second one gave out when I was strapped for cash and needed to get a job done, so I swallowed my pride and got a Harbor Freight cheapy, knowing it was only good for a couple of months. That Harbor Freight piece of junk has now outlived both the brand names several times over.
Like all tools, there are cheap ones and there are really good ones, but sometimes cheap will get you by quite well.