Stylish multi-talented ruggedized enterprise digital assistant runs Android or Windows Mobile
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

When Honeywell introduced the Dolphin 6000 Scanphone in mid-2011, iPhones and Android-based smartphones were already big, but smartphones had not yet surpassed standard "feature" phones. As a result, Honeywell saw a need for what they called "a new class of mobile device that bridges the gap between consumer mobile phones, industrial mobile computers and barcode scanners." Hence the Scanphone, a small and handy "soapbar" device that looks like your average cellphone of the mid-2000s.

Compared to today's large-screen smartphones, the Scanphone looks tiny (though it's actually bigger than it looks). It measures 2.6 x 5.3 inches, is 0.7 inches thick, and weighs 7.1 ounces, heavier than current consumer phones. The 240 x 320 pixel QVGA display measures just 2.8 inches diagonally, in line with older feature phones and Windows Mobile devices, and it has a resistive digitizer best used with a stylus.

The Scanphone, however, has something consumer phones don't have, a real, industrial-strength 1D scan engine for fast and accurate bar code scanning. Yes, you can scan with the cameras of today's smartphones, but not nearly as fast or from the same distance. But what about 2D codes? The Scanphone can handle those, too, via optional software, albeit through its 3mp camera and not the dedicated scanner.

As far as the technology under the hood goes, there's a 416MHz MediaTek processor, an adequate 256MB of RAM and 512MB of Flash, complementable via Micro-SD card storage, and that 3-megapixel autofocus camera with an LED illuminator. For wireless, there's Bluetooth 2.1, basic 802.11b/g WiFi, integrated GPS, and GSM/GPRS/EDGE for voice and data. No 3G. The little 5.7 watt-hour is good for 6 to 8 hours of fairly intensive use.

This being an enterprise-grade device, its considerably tougher than standard issue phones. There's IP54 sealing, which means it's fairly protected against dust and liquids, it can survive three foot drops anywhere, and also the gruesome tumble test. Honeywell offers their Power Tools and SDK to create and integrate applications running under the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS platform.