The auto-off features are a double-edge sword: when you want them to stay on, they don't....
The Mega328 transistor testers are cheap and useful. They tell you more about semiconductor devices than a typical multimeter will, and they can show ESR for electrolytic capacitors (something most multimeters don't do). They also measure inductors and resistors too. They're not as good as an RCL bridge, but they do tell you something.
As for cheap multimeters, you can almost get anything and it will work well enough. Most will be within 1% or so of a good meter.... The problem with cheap multimeters is not usually the accuracy, it's the high-voltage and high-current protection--but if you will never use it at very high voltages, that's not really much of a concern.
A lot of people (even professionals!) blow up fuses and meters by making common setting/probe connection mistakes. The best way to avoid those is to get a meter that has jack shutters. HoldPeak is one cheaper China brand that has that. I think most of their upper-end models are auto-shut-off also.
Others with wrong-hookup-protection: Mastech has one with lighted jacks (MS8268); some of the Uni-T models have an LCD display that shows how they should be connected (UT58, UT107). Flukes beep at you, but I dunno if the China clones do that bit.
A pen-style meter is nice if you do a lot of electronics projects... The problem with a normal meter is that you have to always look 'away' from the circuit to see what the meter display value is. With a pen meter the display is right in your hand, right near where you're already looking. The cheap ones work fine for low voltage, continuity and resistance testing.
If you regularly need to measure high amps, it's MUCH safer to just buy a cheap clamp meter for that than it is to use any normal multimeter with probes.
They pack a lot of features onto most multimeters these days, but much of that you don't use. At least,
I don't.
Mainly I use volts, ohms and the continuity beeper.... occasionally I measure amps, but not often.
For testing capacitors, inductors or transistor-type devices I use a Mega328 meter.
Other things like Hz and duty cycle are nice, if you need them...
I bought another meter ~8 years ago because I had
one single use where I had to measure Hz.... And since then, I've not ever needed to measure Hz.
If you wish to be "fully equipped", then it may be useful to have at least one analog multimeter on hand.
The reason is because if you have a constantly-changing value, many (cheaper) digital meters can't handle it well--especially the cheap auto-ranging meters.
The "rules" for using analog meters are a bit different, so you should read up on that matter....
-And don't leave the batteries in the analog meter, because if you're like me, you'll rarely ever use it.
