Customer Rating: 
Summary: some nice features that are negated by the bad ones
Comment: As a cut man and carpenter helper, my tape measure is perhaps my most important tool. It enables me to accurately make measurements to be cut. I purchased this tape due to my previous good experience with stanley products and the stand out feature sounded nice. My previous tape that I actually started my job with was a 30' stanley maxsteel, so a lot of my opinions are based in direct comparison to that.
On the good side, the fatmax tape does have an excellent standout, which is really nice when you are working alone or dont have someone near by to hold the other end. I cant give you an exact measurement and really I wouldn't be disappointed if it was a little less then advertised as it is substantially more then the maxsteel tape. The tape has been very durable, its survived falls off roofs, scaffolding, etc with no problems. Another feature I really like is the rubber bottom. I can place the tape extended on a board and the rubber will grip the board enough that I can take my hand off the tape to make multiple marks where the tape would be out of reach. Of course I could use the lock feature but as mentioned the lock is noticeably hard to engage, so just running the tape down and letting it sit upright has been nice.
Now the bad "features", as mentioned the lock is difficult to engage, but more importantly to the tape itself, there are several things I don't like. To get such a long standout the tape is wider and is curved more on each side, this creates some problems for me. One is to actually get an accurate measurement I need to twist the tape a good deal, especially on shorter measurements, for the edge of the tape to sit down on the board. This sometimes causes the hook at the end to jump off the board. Also when bowing the tape into a corner to get a measurement, some creative twisting is needed to again try to get an edge to sit flat to get a measurement. While with all tapes you will have to do this to some degree, with the fatmax it is to a level that is annoying and in a lot of cases takes more time to get a measurement then would be required with a thinner tape.
In conclusion the fatmax tape does have its advantages, its long standout can prove useful in some situations (working alone, reaching the end to a helper across an abyss), but for me, its cons outweigh the pros as its wide tape has caused some annoying measuring problems. When this tape dies (with my daily usage I have concluded that likely no tape will last more then a year), I will likely return to a maxsteel 1" wide, or perhaps try another equally thin tape, but I will not be purchasing another fatmax.
