I used my (now sold) Patrol as a handheld quite a bit when I was hunting with a bud with his own thermal, or when I was hunting alone, and I used it as a handheld scanner when deer hunting too. The Patrol makes a great scanner, but it's capability is wasted as a scanner only, imo.
I found I was almost as happy with a Pulsar HD 19A (384, iirc) and a 640 scope, or the Patrol weapon mounted. If the 19A doesn't give me the definition I need, then a look through the scope does.
Off hand, I can't recall the price difference between the basic Patrol and the weapon mountable version, but if it isn't too much of a difference I would swing for weapon mountable version with the DLOC mount for versatility and potential dual use.
JPK