No matter what unit, your not gonna get the battery life of a 35mm unit with a digital unit. I personally have the Trail Mac digital and I am very impressed with this unit. With just standard alkaline batteries, I can usually get a 100 or more pics, rechargeables get around 200 pics, and if you are willing to spend a little more cash, the NiHm batteries will get over 500 pics (all flash pictures). This unit can be customized to allow you to use car batteries to power the unit if you want to.

As far as picture quality goes, I let this photo do the talking for me.