Motorola Solutions is introducing the MC55A0, a WiFi-enabled enterprise
handheld that the company is calling the industry’s most rugged. Designed for
customer-facing applications, outfitted with government-grade security features
and able to withstand 1,000 tumbles in a rotating tumble drum, the device
strives to marry field toughness with office efficiency.
Motorola developed the device for vertical markets such as health care,
manufacturing, hospitality, retail and government, and its feature list speaks
to this. The 3.5-inch color VGA display reportedly can be viewed in any
lighting conditions and paired with a number of keypads, including QWERTY or
numeric options. It can be cleaned with any household cleaner (a perk for
health care workers), supports voice and data over a WLAN, offers four scanner
options — for 1D and 2D bar codes, medium and high density bar codes and very
high density bar codes — and can come with a 3.2-megapixel color camera with
video capabilities.
Also supported are Web browsing, e-mail and the option of push-to-talk voice
calls with Motorola mobile computers, TEAM voice
over virtual LAN (VOVLAN) smartphones and
Motorola two-way radios. The MC55AO, announced Dec. 7, runs Microsoft Windows
Mobile 6.5 Classic and an 806MHz Marvell PXA320 processor. There’s 256MB of
RAM, 1GB of Flash memory and a microSD card
slot for 32GB of additional memory. Bluetooth 2.1 is also on board, along with
Motorola’s MAX MPA 2.0 device architecture
and a MAX Sensor that automatically rotates
the screen to portrait or landscape mode, depending on how the device is being
held. And when the device isn’t in use, the Sensor puts it to sleep, to
conserve the battery.
For more, read the eWeek article: Motorola Unveils MC55A0, ‘Most Rugged’ WiFi Enterprise Device.
