The most significant consideration for any piece of laboratory equipment including a UV spectrophotometer is the ease of operation. Machines that self calibrate back to zero, known as auto zero function, are a genuine time and energy saver in the lab. Not only does the staff not have to take the time to manually zero the spectrophotometer but there is never a question of the accuracy of the readout if questions about zeroing after the last use occur. This saves not only time but also vastly improves overall lab accuracy.

The accuracy of the machine is always a major consideration. Many of the new models of ultraviolet spectrophotometers have a zero drift, which means that they stay completely accurate to less than 0.002A after they are fully warmed up. In addition, they have an automatic wavelength calibration that occurs at each start up, normalizing the wavelengths through the control so readings from the sample are accurate and not affected by slight differences in the wavelength from reading to reading and day to day.