Trimble M3 total station

It's OK, nothing great. Basically a rebranded Nivo. The reflectorless is anemic.

If you're doing a lot of rough terrain traverse, don't care much about reflectorless, and use the Access platform for everything else (it's onboard) then it would be a good option.

I like it because the onboard software is Access, but it's just a rebranded Nivo other than that - if you don't care about the onboard software the Spectra Precision Focus is the same gun for less money. If you like Survey Pro the Nikon Nivo C is a great little gun. All of them have exceptional battery life and personally I think the reflectorless is more than adequate - but I would never shoot reflectorless more than 400' down here.

I do a lot of overhead telecom location, and I couldn't get the M3 to shoot black jacketed lines even 60' away.

Almost every other reflectorless I have used in the past worked better for what I need (except for the early Leica R100s).

one difference is that the nivo doesn't have a number keypad.

Yeah that's pretty bad; wonder if the beam was out of collimation? It should be able to do that easily. I might have to pull out one of our Focus 6 instruments and do a little testing.

I never ran a Nivo C in a production environment but in my former life (as a Trimble Certified Trainer) I got to train some folks on one, it was a sweet little gun. Really bright touchscreen, very clear and easy to read; USB port for file transfer to a thumb drive; great battery life; small and light; and the Survey Pro software was well adapted to the instrument. Most folks here want to use data collectors and so don't go for the onboard (us included we have Focus 6 guns) but if I was going to buy a non-robotic gun for personal use the M3 and Nivo C would be my first two choices.