Trimble and Leica are by far the Top manufactures.
I am bias, however if i were to purchase new shinny hardware I would be looking into what dealer and/or manufacture is going to support me best. New instruments are very complicated, and there will always be a learning curve. However depending on your dealer/manufacture that learning curve can be shortened.
I'd see if your suppliers would let you use the equipment for a few days and try it out. See what one you like.
*cough-Leica-cough*
(Dealer of Leica Equipment)
I would say the leica is way more of a repeatable results and is way more accurate
I'm sure you've made your decision by now. Trimble is by far the way to go for both topo and construction. I've use both of these machines for years. Leica has nice linework if you can create the proper export file type and I like the option to bring individual lines in from a dxf with or without creating points. But the tracking is terrible. To track you it makes an obnoxious beep. If it skips a beep and you take a shot it won't let you know, but it will store a point with no coordinates. If you take a back site and you use a pole and have it on single shot it will store the angle when you hit store. It won't store what it measured but your current location. So if you lean forward to write down your deltas and then hit store you will have a bad backsite. Leica has great gps (minus the ability to adjust the height in the field after the shot was taken), it has amazing scanners. But with their total stations, their poor tracking and bulky old fashioned design makes it slower and prone to error unless you are familiar and know how to avoid these errors. The quality of the information is on par with trimble, so you will get the same information. But you will get it a lot faster with trimble. I am in the process of buying a trimble total station now and if leica was $5000 cheaper, I'd still buy a trimble. I'm using my own money not a companies. The gps or scanner is a tougher choice for me. But the total station is a no brainer.?ÿ
You don't sound very familiar with the Leica. I can pretty well guarantee that on a standard street topo, I'll be faster with my old Leica 1200 than with a Trimble.?ÿ