Is there a good mid-range digital caliper?

I've had a $12 Harbor Freight digital caliper for about 10 years, and I've gotten some great use out of it. It's plenty accurate for my needs, and it's been pretty reliable until lately, when it started randomly jumping back to 0 or up to a larger dimension than it can actually measure. Sometimes I can still get a decent measurement out of it, sometimes it's just too flaky. It doesn't owe me anything at this point, so I'm ready for a replacement.

A Mitutoyo, which I've heard is the gold standard, is $120. Another Harbor Freight cheapo is $20. Is there anything in between that's worth considering? I don't need ultimate accuracy, I just need to tell the difference between something that's 3/8" diameter vs. 10mm, measure the distance between mounting bosses to design brackets that fit, that kind of thing. At a couple bucks a year, maybe another cheapo is the answer, but I'm at a point where I've bought a lot of cheap tools; some of them work great, but when they fail, I'm trying to replace them with something nicer if I can.

Fowler is who I would go with, unless you can find a SPI in stock. 

I know from working with schools in their manufacturing program that right now the supply is all sorts of screwed up, like the local tech school tried to buy a 50 pack of the dial calipers and 1-2 & 2-3 mic sets, and they were able to get ahold of 3.

Yes I agree that Mitutoyo & Starrett are the gold standards, but you probably don't need them.   Dial calipers seem slightly easier to get ahold of right now, but not too much easier.

Good hunting!

Thanks!

The SPI 18-010-9 looks like a good bet. MSC says they have it in stock for $56.
The Fowler 54-101-150-2 also looks good, $40 at Zoro with a 17 day lead time, or cheaper and faster on Amazon.

Both are made in China. The SPI has an IP54 rating, which tells me that they at least attempted to design it so it wouldn't get gunked up, the Fowler has nothing...which doesn't necessarily mean it's worse, just means nobody bothered to test or rate it.

I'll do a little more research and one of these will probably end up on my Christmas list 

I still have the Mitoyo caliper they gave on my first day as a coop at GE in 1999.  Other than adding batteries it is still more accurate than anything I need.

ebay

Hear me out.

Get one that's broken for a silly reason. I bought a dial mitutoyo for like $35 because the little clamp holding the dial from spinning broke. It's still as accurate as it ever was, and came with extra fun things.

I have a nice Mitutoyo I keep at my desk but we keep the Husky 6IN Calipers in our field testing and prototype shop tool boxes.  They are cheap enough and have the Home Depot no questions asked sorta warranty.  

Probably made by the same chinese supplier as a lot of the cheap calipers but it's nice to have that brick and mortar backing if it ever craps out.

I bought a Fowler a year or two ago based on recommendations here. I've only used it maybe 3 times, and have nothing to compare it to, but at least it seems to give consistent & repeatable measurements. 
 

I pulled it out to use it last week for the first time since I got it & discovered the battery was dead. Fortunately it came with a spare battery & there's a place for it in the case.