I think i have bad news. This morning i was contacted by frank hu’s store (some payment issues). I should cancle and please reorder (happend before on Ali). I took the chance to ask him about the 8133. He confirmed our worst fears. Every new delivered Tasi meter in 2018 is the one with black top. And he also has only the new (black ones).
So this makes me think about the answere i got from Tasi directly! (was it a straight lie?)
Are you sure he knows what you’re talking about?
Both of them have a black top, the difference is that the better one has a small red piece in the middle of the black top.
Maybe he misunderstood you?
I send him two pictures. One with the red top and one with the black. He said the black one is new one.
If that’s the case then how did he send a “good” one to djozz a few weeks ago?
I do not know. Old Stock? If you are interested you can ask the seller. The only thing i know is, that everybody is telling something different.
See BZG Electronics. I asked with picture which one they have in stock. Answere was: The one with the red top. Kame Sennin ordered from there and got the bad one.
Now frank hu’s store said he has only the black ones and that it is the new version (knowing that i will not buy this version). But djozz got a good one from there.
And Tasi says black one is old, red one is new version.
I think the situation is simple, aslong you are not having someone in china that can personaly confirm the content of the package you can not be sure what you get!
Maybe ask the seller to send a pic of your item before they ship it?
I was so pissed of this TA8133 thing !
And that classified ad about a T-10M not far from were i live was still here ...Not the latest model like the one i have at work but the previous one, the price was ok compared to the price of a new one but still too expensive for me so i hadn't called but hey it was still around after a full month in the ads and i was REALLY pissed so i called the guy and offered the maximum i could "reasonably" spend for something that i don't really need.
And he eventually agreed :-)
So here is my new toy :
I checked the 3 cheap Tasi’s (and Mobilux) against 4 of the test-lights also used in the OP to get an idea of their differences.
Here’s the data, to explain what is in the table:
*for most lights I checked a few output settings. After every series I re-measured with Mobikux (number between parenthesis) to see any output drop of the flashlights in the course of measuring with 4 meters (there was some).
*the green numbers in the Mobilux row are +3.4% corrections to get the Mobilux to the most recent calibration.
*the green numbers in the Tasi rows are percentage deviation from Mobilux
*the red numbers in the last row was the measurement of the good 8133 divided by the measurement of the 8132. To see if they are similar apart from a calibration difference.
Can’t blame you if you do not follow the clutter above, the conclusions are:
*the re-measuring of the TA8132 gave roughly the same results as in the measurements of the same luxmeter in the OP, but there’s a few percent difference here and there, so this type of comparison is not extremely accurate (assuming that the TA8132’s performance is consistent, which I think is likely)
*the “good” TA8133 has a ~3% lower calibration than the TA8132, so its calibration is not as close to the Mobilux as the TA8132 , but otherwise the error-characteristics are the same. I expect that the wavelength responses are very close to each other.
*the “bad” TA8133, when at all it measures (it starts producing numbers above 60 lux :confounded: ), the numbers are way too low, with lower light levels giving larger errors than higher light levels so this luxmeter is not even lineair! It seems I got a total dud here.
That should be an extremely good luxmeter, I just read the specs. Well done.
Thanks for the testing djozz and nice input from members. 
Well this is such a train wreck. Thanks for all the tests djozz!
I got message from two more sellers. Both with the same content. Here one of the answeres i got:
Hi,my friend
we check with the factory ,now the factory supply the black top instead of the red one .
There’s one last straw. My “black top” (and other visible clues on the outside) corresponded with downgraded sensor-internals and miserable performance, but that was just one unit. Perhaps there’s black tops with the good internals? 
Or else wait for new cheap luxmeters to check. At least we know that ok and usable luxmeters can in principle be made for little money.
Lucky me I’ve got good one from this store on Sept 2017: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/TASI-TA8133-200-000Lux-Digital-LCD-backlight-Pocket-Light-Meter-tachometer-luxmeter-Lux-FC-Measure-Tester/2797144_32791412464.html
Thanks for sharing findings. I wouldn’t know my meter could be so bad.
To other people looking for an 8132 or 8133 meter:
If you ask for a picture before buying then you might be able to see if there are other signs of low quality, such as the crappy cable and pale red housing, instead of just what colour the top is.
I am trying exactly that Enderman.
A good tipp for everyone that is also trying this. Check the pictures twice. I got pictures from two sellers. Both looked good. red top. . . but when downloading and viewing enlarged i noticed that the picture was showing a TA8130 not the 32 or 33. There are a few sellers that claim to have the right one (some say its their last one!!). But untill now nowbody managed to deliver a picture from a 8132/33. But i have time and will try to get one.
And maybe like djozz said, only the samples he got had bad internals. I doubt it, but it is possible.
Or else find other luxmeters out there that have that same measuring unit. I saw a few teardowns on youtube of other meters that looked exactly the same inside. Not that this luxmeter is so great but it is at least better than the LX1330B that so many people use.
I have not done detailed comparison but the "black top" TA8133 i got does the same weird things djozz's one does like displaying 0lm when T-10 says 70ish lm, 100lm when t-10 is like 160lm, that plus the difference seem to depend on the lamp type and color wich is a sign that the filter doesn't follow the right curve.
One meter doing weird things might be an error but two meters with the same kind of behaviour sounds like the start of a trend
From a designer point of view its feels like Tasi changed the sensor type without changing the calibration parameters (plus the new sensor+new filter doesn't fit the expected response curve as well as the previous couple did)
Its interesting to see how it is working on Aliexpress.
I think it is save to say that most of the sellers do not have their own stock. They use dropshipping.
How do i come to this conclusion. I asked the sellers only which one they have (I send a picture with a red and a balck one). And i got the same picture from 6 sellers. It showed the black one.
So they asked the warehouse and all got the same picture from there.
So i think i have to search for something else. To bad. The meter was relative precise and that for a very good price.