Roger. I use the inreach mini and cell phone to check in with home occasionally. Both the inreach and my phone stay turned off until I need them, so batteries last 4+ weeks. It works well for that.
I tried coordinating a meeting with a buddy that also has an inreach during moose season, and have never been able to make inreach to inreach comms work. Kind of disappointing. Have had rare issues with texts not going through, but have had quite a few times when sat phone calls didn't go through too, so nothing is perfect. Cant speak to the 66i, but the inreach is not something I'd want for comms between parties in the field. For voice, I'd rather run baofeng (cheap) handheld vhf ham radios than anything integrated into another device. So I do... grin.
