Guide to Business Mobiles (July 2008)

Airo A25

Organisations, corporate and increasingly government must consider the robustness of the handset’s they deploy to employees working alone or in physically demanding jobs.

The propensity of handset manufacturers to create ever more glamorous phones causes serious problems for business buyers.

Mobiles used by a vet, builder, plumber, engineer, mechanic, outreach worker or nurse, will inevitably suffer a rough life. Such users need a tough handset.

The Airo A25 is an example of a handset tested to the severest civilian levels, including being dropped and vibrated, to be IP67 rated.

This means that it is totally protected against ingress by dirt, sand and muck (vets note, it can be washed under a hose) and can be immersed in a meter of water with no ill affect.

This level of protection does not appear to compromise its specification (see right). It includes GPS and Windows Mobile 6 Professional with Direct Push email.

Although the standby time appears low, the GPS system and group locate operates continuously to ensure employee security at all times.

There are other rugged devices but the Airo is especially suited to the blue collar world.

HTC P6500

Whilst not providing the protection of the Airo, the HTC P6500 (~£530) has a range of enterprise features suitable for secure data capture.

The handset supports Tri Band HSDPA, WiFi (b,g), GPS, a large 3.5” QVGA screen, two SDIO slots for specialist accessories, a fingerprint security sensor and a 3 Megapixel camera with auto focus.

The camera can read bar codes with third party software; although if being used regularly for scanning it may be sensible to use a proprietary scanner with an SDIO interface.

Apart from the microSD slot, internal ROM memory can be increased by an extra 1GB to allow for a greater range of bespoke applications.