A friend of mine, an engineering lab director who works at another company in town and an avid mountain climber, borrowed a Nomad prototype to take up the side of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador last May. Tim had a great trip, but terrible weather and snow conditions. As he put it, "picture a knife edge ridge at 18,000' andyour footsteps kicking off avalanches on both sides going off into a dark void; we turned around." He has a way with words. Tim used the Nomad a fair amount on the aclimatization climbs, taking it as high as 18,000 feet. He didn't take it on any of the summit climbs as he was reducing weight to the minimum. For the most part the prototype worked well. The battery held up fine, although the low temp specification wasn't challenged much as it only got down in the 20's (balmy). He had severe weather; "rain, snow, and wind, and it didn't have issues." Tim liked the interface, which he said was "easy to use with gloves." The proto GPS did take a while to get oriented south of the equator but was useful on the mountain after that. He found it particularly helpful in tracking his altitude.
So far Tim holds the record for carrying the most powerful handheld computer in the world (the Nomad) to the highest elevation, captured in that second picture. It will be interesting to see who takes one higher yet.