Motorola Smartphones as Mobile PCs

I’ve gotten used to reviewing a lot of smartphones these days that I rarely get glued to a specific unit. However, when Motorola invited me to their office to check out their enterprise phones that doubles as mobile PCs, I obliged.

Typical of smartphones in the enterprise class, the handsets are a bit bulky and devoid of any eye-candy. Very understandable considering the type of people that will be using them and the environment they are always in.

But what they lack in looks, they make up in features. Take for example this Motorola ES400. Looks like an oversized full qwerty smartphone, powered by Windows Mobile 6.5.3 Professional.

Aside from the full qwerty keypad (options for AZERTY and QWERTZ keypad orientation available), it’s also got a polycarbonate analog resistive touch screen with haptic feedback for use with a stylus.

The handset runs on a 600 MHz ARM 11 processor (MSM 7627) with 256MB RAM/1GB Flash. This is also the very first mobile phone i’ve seen that has a finger print scanner (biometric security) and bar code scanner.

This other one, the Motorola MC65, is much bigger and tougher. It’s been wrapped really tightly to survive some harsh environments and weather. They even had the antenna outside the unit (see the protruding horn on the top end) and a hand-strap at the back.

The handset is also one of the first dual 3.5G broadband WAN and connects flexibly to both GSM and CDMA networks. Powered by a MSM Qualcomm 7627 @ 600 MHz with 256MB RAM/1GB Flash running Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, it’s got most of the features of the smaller ES400 plus a bit more.

And get this, it has a huge 3600mAh Li-Ion battery and a secondary (back-up battery @ 25mAh). The highest capacity Li-Ion battery I’ve seen on a smartphone is just 1500mAh.

All that packaging and solid construction comes with a host of benefits — multiple dop specifications (6 ft.), electrostatic discharge, environmental sealing, humidity, operating temperatures and tumble specifications (up to 2,000 tumbles at half a meter high per tumble).

One can just imagine where these phones are meant to be used — delivery/shipping (e.g. UPS, DHL, FedEx), engineering (field operations) and other rugged job requirements you can imagine. Motorola executives tell me they include custom software and help companies in expanding their existing system to integrate these mobile PCs.

These handsets are really meant for enterprise or business use and they don’t come pretty cheap. The Motorola ES400 costs about $700+ a pop while the Motorola MC65 has a price tag of just over $2,200+ each.