Tell me about geologgers!

Factual Questions
1

Having recently bought myself an iPhone, I was terribly excited to play with its gps - specifically, I think it’d be cool to have a record of where I go. Then, of course, I find out that doing that all the time KILLS my battery, so bleh.

Instead, I’ve read about dedicated geologgers, and it would be really nifty to find something that I can keep in my pocket, and have on all the time. Problem is, most of the ones I’ve seen have a battery life of about ten or twelve hours (and presumably that’s new, and will decrease with age). Some of them have motion sensors, and given my desk-job, that seems like it’d be a big increase, but I have no idea if ‘battery life up to twelve hours’ means you get twelve hours of actual logging (probably enough for most days), or twelve hours of having it on, with only occasionally logging.

So, does anyone have any experience with geologgers? What are my options?

2

I have a Holux M-241. Inexpensive and it does what it says on the box. The software it comes with is rubbish, bit it works with gpsbabel and various common apps.

Battery life is around 10 hours at best - that’s with logging on. I noticed, in the dark, that the backlight is never entirely off. Its faint glow surely doesn’t help. Maybe they’ve fixed that in later versions.

3

Hmmm, does that have any way to recharge (other than swapping out rechargeable batteries)? Since I’m looking for something to use every day, it’d be a hell of a lot more convenient to not have to juggle batteries.

4

You have to take the battery out to charge it. There are probably similar devices with a hard-wired rechargeable battery. I just swap them around in the evening - I use it when I travel, for tagging photos, so I usually have AA’s and a charger with me anyway.