I have the digital one, which I bought new at Calumet (which, but the way, is pretty much the only place I could find one; they are probably not long for this world, so if you want a new one, I would get it now). I really wanted a model V instead, as I prefer the needle, but I just didn't want to buy a used meter at the time. I didn't want to have to test, calibrate, have service performed, not knowing what it had been through, etc. I just wanted something that was brand new that would last me for life, and to which I could calibrate everything. The digital works great, and is nice and small, although I prefer the visible scale of the V. I have done all my film testing using this meter, and I have my cameras and my Sekonic studio incident meter calibrated to it. It works more than well enough for the classic film tests and zone methods, although the scale does make the figurin' not necessarily "easier", but more "visual".
You have to consider price, though. It is a ton of money to spend for a meter that only does one thing, so it was hard to convince myself to buy a new one. If you use flash at all, it won't help you in that arena; you will need to buy another meter, so you have to consider that as well. (I don't feel so bad about dropping so much money on my Digital, since I got my Sekonic for free; actually a "Brockway", but it is made by Sekonic.) In short, if this wasn't going to be my primary meter at least 75% of the time, and I wasn't going to use it for calibrating everything to, I would have bought a used Spotmeter V to save money.
I really like the ones that have a split scale, like the 1/21. However, the battery issue makes them harder to use.
As odd as it sounds, I think the Digital actually seems more durable than the V. I usually think the older models of things are generally tougher, but not in this case.
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