Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

All noncontact voltage detectors are a compromise. You can get one which is discriminating enough to avoid false readings, but then it will have a very short range. You can get one that is sensitive, but then false readings are a problem. and you can get one with variable sensitivity, but then it becomes fiddly and ambiguous. Since none of these choices is clearly better than the others, all three types are available on the market from reputable manufacturers. The Fluke is in the 1st category. It is not adjustable and it does not give you a bar graph signal strength reading. It is discriminating with low sensitivity. In order to detect voltage, it has to be touching or very nearly touching the cable, and it has to be on the same _side_ of the cable as the live conductor, not the neutral or ground. It takes a couple of seconds to alert, and a couple of seconds to shut off again when you move it away from the cable. This is all it does, and it does it reliably. Forget about detecting a cable in a wall or inside conduit; it's not gonna happen and you'll know not to waste your time trying. Before buying the Fluke, I tried the Klein NCVT2 and NCVT3. I was able to make both of them generate false alerts simply by holding them in one hand and moving my other hand near the tip, and I rejected them for that reason. However, if you need higher sensitivity for applications that the Fluke will not cover, I suggest looking at those models, as they seem to be the highest quality from the "high sensitivity" class. For the adjustable type, look at the Sperry adjustable model. I saw some complaints that the Fluke won't detect a live outlet (the tip is too fat to fit in the slot). This is true. I consider this an acceptable trade-off: testing an outlet is the easiest thing in the world with a plug-in tester, and I would always prefer that to non-contact tester because it is also more reliable. Since you don't _need_ a non-contact tester for an outlet, I think it is not worth compromising other aspects of the design in order to support that use case. Also, be advised as you read these reviews that all the different models are lumped together. You may want to filter reviews for the specific model that you actually want.