I have both a wet bulb and a dial type. I prefer the my dial type Taylor because it has an 18" probe, takes up less room in the pot and is easier to read. I've seen some complaints about the lettering coming off some of the paddle type wet bulbs. My mercury wet bulb is over 30 years old and has the lettering inside of a glass tube. Because of condensation problems i had to dry out and reseal the glass tube about 2 years ago and that's when I decided to spring for the Taylor long probe dial type.