Hi Scott,
I cannot speak to the Nu Temp NU-701 but I'll speak to the Maverick (first impression, read on). I ordered mine last week and just opened her up today to test against boiling water. The first thing I did not like was the fact that you have to take the back off the transmitter to turn the unit on, yes the back as in where you place the batteries, the power switch is back there. Someone else had mentioned this in another post however I didn't realize exactly what they were saying, now I understand, not a great design (in my opinion). Next, guess where the TX button is to manually connect to the remote monitor, you guessed it, behind the battery door. Very inconvenient. My main concern with this design, other than it being a pain in the butt is that you have a "thumb-nail" type screw that you must turn to take the back off the unit and I imagine this could wear out after several smokes.
Someone else had mentioned not turning the unit off as it's simply an LCD display and the batteries wouldn't drain that quickly. The problem with this is you still have to take the back off to press the TX button as if you do not turn the units on within 60 seconds of each other allowing them to automatically connect you must press the TX button to manually connect them (if I'm incorrect here, someone please let me know).
Testing against water was pretty much dead nutz on, smoker probe 212, meat probe 210 . . . I can live with that.
Also (just looked at the NU-701) note that the Maverick comes with two probes one for the smoker and one for your meat. I'm not sure how many probes come with the NU-701 or how many it can be expanded to.
This weekend will be my first smoke with this unit, I'll update this post with my first experience.
Oh, I paid just over $50 for the unit (including SH and Tax) on Amazon.com.
Ciao