Honeywell introduced the Dolphin 7800 towards the end of 2011 as an "enterprise digital assistant" for various mobile workforce applications that require a multi-purpose computing, communication and data capture device.
In the same general class as Motorola Solutions' MC65 and Intermec's CN50, the 7800 was designed as a traditional Pocket PC-style "keyboard-PDA." Measuring 3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches and weighing just over 11 ounces, the Dolphin 7800 is remarkably light and compact and easily fits into most pockets.
The device has a 3.5-inch sunlight-readable display with a 4-wire resistive touch screen. 480 x 640 pixel VGA resolution is enough to make for a crisp, sharp image. Honeywell offers both a 30-key numeric keypad as well as the 46-key QWERTY laout shon in the picture on this page. The QWERTY layout also includes phone answer and hang-up buttons, 4-way curso control keys, and a dedicated scanner button.
While most older Pocket PC-style devices (and actually most Windows CE/Mobile handhelds) used to be powered by Marvel XScale processors, Honeywell chose an 800MHz TI OMAP chip instead. There's an ample 256MB of RAM and 512MB of Flash, expandable via a microSDHC card slot. The standard 8.5 watt-hour battery is good for 6.5 hours of fairly intense scanning, decoding and data transmission; a more powerful 14.4 watt-hour extended battery increases that to a full 12 hours, at the cost of a bit of extra thickness and weight.
The Dolphin 7800 is a competent voice/data communication device with Class II Bluetooth 2.1, dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, and carrier-independent Gobi wireless broadband that also includes GPS/A-GPS. The 7800 also comes with a 3-megapixel autofocus camera with LED illuminator as well as a 3-axis accelerometer. Scanning operations benefit from the use of Honeywell's proprietary Adaptus imaging technology. Both standard range and extended range versions of the N5603 engine (see Honeywell N5600 series page) are available.
On the ruggedness side, the Dolphin 7800 sports IP64 sealing, meaning it's totally protected against dust and can also handle water spray from all directions. The device can handle 5-foot drops and a wide 14 to 122 degree operating temperature range. It also offers good ESD protection and survived a punishing tumble test.
For history's sake, let's mention that the Dolphin line of mobile computers originated with Hand Held Products, which was acquired in December 2007 by Honeywell and together which Metrologic (acquired 2008) and LXE (acquired 2011) are part of today's Honeywell Scanning & Mobility.
