With a heavy heart I come before you, to tell you that I have succumbed.
My search for a good bench multimeter has lead me astray. I became enchanted by that, which I have sworn to avoid. I have just bought myself a slow booting bench multimeter. A keysight 34465A.
The specs were just too much for me. That machine will finally allow me to more or less properly work on battery operated devices. I have decided to re-evaluate my priorities. Physical size and current sensitivity are finally more important to me than boot time. I'll get over those 25-30 seconds. And the price. With the free memory expansion on top of it, I will have gifted myself with a machine that will last me some years. I just hope that the change of OS that some rumour to be coming (the version of Windows CE that is embedded being EOL probably next year) will not suddenly make this machine obsolete. Now on for the hunt for some good kelvin probes.
By the way, for future reference, here is my shortlist (and yes, machines of various categories in here, subjectively sorted from good to questionable):
(only new, since second hand market in europe is very strained)
Clones are not mentioned. And only meters with 4W and built-in ethernet connectivity are mentioned. A meter that has no ETH is outdated.
* Yokogawa DM7560: fast boot (don't know how much, but fast), excellent specs and features, but hard to get here, and too deep for my bench.
* Tek DMM6500: 15 sec boot, too deep for my bench, otherwise very nice.
* Keysight 34461A: 25-30 sec boot, but the 34465A has higher current sensitivity.
* Fluke 8846A (aka Tek DMM4050, but no longer sold new): 1 sec boot, but old design, repairs seem difficult
* BK 5492C: boot time unknown, 1.2M count, too deep for my bench
* Siglent SDM 3065X: 17 sec boot, 2.2M count, too deep for my bench
* GW-Instek GDM9061: 1 sec boot, 1.2M count, but noisy (electrically) it seems
* Siglent SDM3055X: 17 sec boot, 240k count, otherwise very nice for the price.
* HMC 8012: 11 sec boot, 480k count, lower amp range not low enough for me, secondary measurements seem hampered.
* AIM-TTI 1908P: 7 sec boot, 120k count, too slow sample rate (1/s), lower amp range not low enough for me
* OWON XDM3051: 10 sec boot, 200k count, dual display but no DCV+DCI, looks very price-optimised.
I've got more details about most of these meters of course, like ppm, price, sample rate and power consumption. If you want me to add that, can do, but most of these meters are already mentioned in the specialized multimeter topic (and selected numbers never do justice).