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 healthcare 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 VoWLAN 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.
Game for government deployments, the MC55A0 supports virtual private networks (VPNs) and can add FIPS 140-2 Level 1 certification. And — because who doesn’t like the option? — it will be available in white or blue.
For more, read the eWeek article: Motorola Unveils MC55A0, ‘Most Rugged’ WiFi Enterprise Device.