Mark of Fitness MF-81 Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor

Suggested Retail Price: $39.99

Rating: 4/10

Product Specs

• Automatic wrist style
• Fits wrists 4.9 to 8.1 inches in circumference
• Runs on 2 "AAA" batteries (not included)
• 5 year warranty 

Features

• 60 memory units
• Mark of Fitness IQ System
• Comes with storage case and instruction manual

Disadvantages

• Suffers from accuracy issues
• Relatively high rate or failure
• No AC adapter support

Review

The Mark of Fitness MF-81 is a notoriously unreliable blood pressure monitor, which is unfortunate because it is easy to use, has some good features, and isn't very expensive.  Some people who buy this model will be lucky and never run into any problems, but many more will be buying a blood pressure monitor that just plain doesn't work.

A lot of people who have bought this monitor have run into trouble right away.  Often the unit will not even turn on, despite changing the batteries.  On the plus side, if this happens to you, you can exchange it for a new blood pressure monitor, and it does come with a 5 year warranty.  Also, sometimes the MF-81 will function for the first couple of months, but will then degrade to a point where it gives out several error messages, and it will sometimes take several attempts to successfully measure your blood pressure.  Additionally, it's prone to giving inaccurate blood pressure results.  Again, not everyone will run into these reliability issues with this blood pressure monitor, but enough will that it's a major concern.

If you do choose to buy this blood pressure monitor, and are lucky enough that it functions properly, then it's really not such a bad model.  It can remember 60 tests, and is simple and comfortable to use around your wrist.  The Mark of Fitness MF-81 also features the IQ System technology, which is a group of features that allows rapid measurement of blood pressure while not giving up accuracy.  In fact, it measures blood pressure in about half the time that it takes the typical blood pressure monitor.  Another nice extra is the included storage case, which when combined with its small size, makes for a very portable monitor.

Although some people are lucky, and the MF-81 functions fine for them, it's hard to recommend this model of blood pressure monitor.  If you really want a Mark of Fitness wrist model, the MF-84 is most likely the better value, though even that monitor has reliability issues of its own.  You should only buy the MF-81 if you're able to find it at a very low price.