Motion Toughens Up With Rugged Tablet PC
Motion Computing’s new F5 tablet PC is butt ugly, but it isn’t designed for swanky marketing types who press the flesh all day. No. This bad boy is a balance between a commercial-grade device and fully-rugged PC that will be right at home in the arms of a strapping young alpha male.The F5 (£1350 to £2000) addresses issues encountered by mobile workforces across industries like field service, manufacturing, government and construction.
Besides being hard as nails, the F5 sports an Intel Centrino processor, is IP54 rated and designed to withstand exposure to dust and moisture, has a View Anywhere outdoor display and built-in handle, and there’s a shock-mounted hard drive and combined accelerometer, designed to detect drops and shocks in order to reduce the possibility of data loss.
To improve workflow there’s also a digital camera, RFID and optional barcode scanner, along with embedded wireless broadband and optional SanDisk 32GB solid state drive (SSD). The system runs Microsoft’s Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or Windows Vista Business and comes with a 3-year ‘field-ready’ warranty (i.e. covers damage from short drops (approx. 30 inches), and ordinary course exposure to rain and dust).
