I've had this scale for 5 1/2 years and I'm about to replace it. The buttons have worn through and the mechanical linkages that underlie them are poking through. This means that they keypad is no longer waterproof and it's just a matter of time before grime and water accumulate on the inside and destroy the innards. The plastic shield that covered the keypad only lasted a year or so.

Five years isn't bad by today's standards, but it would never survive that long in a commercial environment. Performance-wise, the scale has been everything I needed. I never bought the AC adapter because the batteries last a long, long time.

Overall, highly recommended, but it could stand to be more durable.

Alton Brown highly recommends measuring baking ingredients by weight. Once you try it, you will love it!

And this scale -- though slightly more expensive than some -- has all the features you really want and need. Tare: put a bowl on top, press Tare, display reads 0.00 -- now add your ingredient (15 ounces of bread flour, for example); dump the measured flour into your bread maker, return the bowl to the scale -- it's ready for your next ingredient.

Nice scale. Turn it on and it zeroes itself. If you have a calibration weight (sold separately) you can check its accuracy. It has never been out of calibration since I have had it. The 'tare' functio is very useful for zeroing out the weight of measuring containers as is the percent function used in bread recipes. The stainless steel top cleans easily, thought the swiveling plastic shield is more of a nuicance than it is useful.

Purchased the Bakers Math Kitchen Scale KD8000 for my wife who is a baker and owns a small bake shop supplying local stores with homemade baked goods. She uses the scale regularly to check the weights of finished products which is very important and must be included on all labels so it is very important to have an accurate scale. I helped her set it up and calibrate it and it is dead on. Set-up was very easy requiring you to attach the main tray, lining up its 4 legs into 4 openings in the body and that was about it. Next we calibrated it using a calibration weight I also purchased on Amazon. There are two additional plastic covers that fit over the display cover that swings up to allow access to the buttons used to turn the scale on, set tare weight, choose units of measurements, etc. These plastic covers are to help keep the scale clean and can be hand washed. The instruction booklet is easy to understand and contains everything we needed to know. The scale also has percentage weighing which is useful for bakers. It has a backlit display when turned on is very easy to read with large numbers. Very pleased with all features of this scale.

I worked for years for a scale manufacturer and used one of ours until I got tired of its low capacity. At 8kg with 1g resolution, this scale is a fantastic bargain. I keep it on top of my refrigerator and grab it down when I need it (5 times a day!) and with all the knocking around the repeatability (same reading every time) has been spot on. Even placement on the scale platform has good repeatability, but suffers with heavy loads towards the edges. My only wish would be able to enter tare weights (I know how much my pans weigh), but at this price it would be too much to ask. I've only had to change the batteries twice after about 18 months of constant use. The display shield is a killer feature, I wore the silver plastic off my last scale after cleaning it so often, the shield makes it impervious to spills. What would make it perfect would be a remote so I'd never had to lift the shield and be able to enter a tare weight.

The auto-shutoff was way too fast for me at 2 minutes. It was constantly going off when a recipe required me to step away. After some research I found the instructions on how to change the auto time:

1. Turn the scale off.
2. Press "POWER" and "HOLD" buttons down at the SAME TIME and DON'T LET UP until the display reads "Nb 0", "Nb 1", or "Nb 2". This is the weight response speed ("Nb 0" is slowest, "Nb 1" is the default).
3. Press "MODE" to toggle between them.
4. Press "TARE" to select.
5. The display will now read "OFF 0", "OFF 1", or "OFF 2".
6. Press "MODE" to toggle between them. OFF O = auto shutoff disabled, "OFF 1" = 2 minutes, "OFF 2" = 5 minutes.
7. Press "TARE" to select your choice.
The display will return to normal and your done!