Tough can be beautiful. Intermec a manufacturer of hardened and industrial PocketPC handheld products has added color to its 700 series mobile computer.   The 700 series based on the Intel XScale 400MHz PXA250 processor is designed for the mobile and industrial work force.  Whether it be factory floor workers, field technician, meter readers the 700 Series was created to withstand the tough environment called "the real world."

Intemec calls out several interesting specifications on the device:

• Rain and Dust Resistance (IP64)
• Extended Operating  Temperature: -10 to 60C or 14 to 140F (without Bluetooth)
• Operating  Temperature: -0 to 40C or 32 to 104F (with Bluetooth)
• Drop Test (5 feet, 26 times onto concrete)

A few notes: 

• Extended temperature Bluetooth radios are hard to come by.   
• Docker gadget pants or Scott eVests are needed in northeast to keep 700 Series Color LCD above 14F.
• The drop test is not part of the units burn in process. 

Never-the-less the 700 series is optimized for outdoor and indoor work environments.  Intemec has paid special attention to battery life specified at 6-10 hours or continuous operation with a 4 hour recharge time.  The devices comes with 64MB or RAM, 32MB of Flash with Secure Digital (SD) and Compact Flash (CF) expansion slots.  The color display measures 3.8in x 3.1in with 240x320 pixels vertical display with 64K colors. 

Communications is very important to the mobile work force.  Intermec has pre-packaged solutions for 802.11b, GSM/GPRS, CDMA and bluetooth.  Also optional is a v.90 modem.   The device comes standard with RS232, IRDA, 10MB Ethernet and USB.   The system can also be configured with integrated scanner for 2 dimensional (2D) and 1 dimensional (1D) barcode applications.

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