I own an F289 and an U1461A. The U1461A is effectively U1272A with OLED, extended temperature and 1.1kV insulation test mode, and unfortunately, lower accuracy (maybe due to wider rated temperature range).
The F289 has very acceptable battery life, so does the U1461A. Both are considerably shorter than a normal LCD DMM, but still long enough to not to worry in everyday use.
F289 has leaky supercap, which plagues almost every F289 unit. Some only leak some organic electrolyte and doesn't matter in a long run, just battery time backup time goes shorter. Some severe cases the leaky supercap will drain the main battery.
F289 has rather long boot up time. If you prefer to turn it off after each measurement, it will be annoying. U1461A boots faster, but still not comparable with F87V.
F289 firmware is essentially bug free, while U1461A has more bugs than what can annoy me. But usually those bugs are not safety related. It's just MCU having a brain fart, and a reboot takes care of them.
For an everyday DMM, I choose F289 over U1461A. I bought U1461A only because I wanted to have (crude) HV testing capability without having to buy a $7000 SMU (Keithley 2410).
HV testing.... you mean High Voltage or.....
For my situation, I own a T5-1000, and a Megger MIT 420. Currently I need something which can measure electronics (something more accurate than my T5), logging function is good, but I only need like 10min max (so I know Fluke 289 is completely overkill) what more important for the logging part is how many time per sec.
(I work in a food processing plant, so lots of heaters, steam cookers, motors, and electronics to control valves)
Currently I have a few meters in my mind.
Keysight U1272A
Pro: Lots of features, "Sounds" WAY more refine than a F87V, have even more functions than F289, but can be gimmick stuff
Cons: Seems super buggy, and not too much support in Canada
Currently, still waiting for them to answer me that do their 4-20mA function. Can it source or simulate.....
Fluke 289
Pro: Fluke stable, and problem free
Cons: seems less function or less may be less gimmick than U1272a. Price is quite hi, almost not worth that price
Fluke 87V
Pro: Fluke stable, and problem free
Cons: really outdated in my opinion.
Fluke 279 (The one with thermal camera)
Pro: Fluke stable, can record those video or images
Cons: thermal camera not as good as flir DM284, measure part seems to be worst than F87V
still waiting for Fluke tech support to give me the spec of the meter
Gossen Metrawatt Metrahit Energy multimeter
Pro: German quality, and basically I have an energy meter
Cons: not too much detail or support in Canada (Even worst than Keysight) and *just find out you need to hook it serial to the unit to do the energy measurement ( can be wrong since lack info on this unit)
Flir DM284
Pro: Very good thermal image part. Meter have most of the function which I want.
Cons: meter part made by extech. quality may be not too great. Their tech support don't like to pick up the phone to reply back.
Currently still getting more detail on the unit
Dave's 112GW (still no idea what to expect from this unit)
Hoping that it have those sweet function of a Keysight 1272A & Gossen Metrawatt Metrahit Energy multimeter
Who got more detail on this unit, please let me know