A PDA that gets used

If you've been looking for a device for your field service workers that isn't as bloated as a Pocket PC, then Symbol has an answer.

The company today announced a new handheld that runs on the embedded Windows CE operating system (aka Windows CE.NET). The PPT 8800 Series offers a rugged PDA that has a smaller footprint than other devices.

The PPT 8800 includes an Intel xScale processor at 300 MHz, and 32M bytes of RAM and 32M bytes of ROM. While slower than devices that use a 400MHz xScale processor, Symbol officials said this gets them extended battery life, an issue with field service workers who need handheld devices that can last all day.

The ruggedness of the device also allows the PPT 8800 to survive a drop of four feet onto concrete in any temperature range, Symbol officials said.

Connectivity options include a cradle/synchronization method (batch process), embedded 802.11b wireless LAN or embedded Bluetooth. The device also has two different keypad options, one with a 15-key keypad that looks like a cell phone keypad, or a 4-button keypad with user-definable functions for those keys.

The goal of the device is to let companies
develop one application for the device (bar-code scanning, etc.) without the need for the extra applications and "baggage" of other PDAs.

Go to Symbol's Web site for more details.

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