Oct/Nov 2008

A newcomer to the modern wave of compact all-in-one handheld terminals has arrived on the market in the form of Belgravium's Boston 8500.

The first thing you notice is that it's smartly designed. The next is that Belgravium has built in the ability for it to handle a lot of different functions. In addition to offering low- and high-frequency scanning and RFID reading, it can be configured as a voice recognition terminal, and can have up to three wireless connectivity variants (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPRS).

There's also a built-in 2 megapixel camera, and you can specify an SIRF GPS chip so that it's ready-equipped for software-based satnav.

Not all this comes as standard, but the basics are there. The processor is Intel's ubiquitous PA270 XScale unit, linked to 64MB of flash memory and 64MB or 128MB of RAM. The operating system is Windows CE.

 

The display is a 3.5in QVGA high-visibility touch screen, and the keyboard options are 41-key numeric/alpha and 61-key full alphanumeric.

The rating for dust and water resistance is a respectable IP65, and drop-testing is for 1.5 metres on to concrete. The weight is also respectable at 48g, and the 3800mAh lithium-ion/polymer battery is said to last more than a shift in the warehouse (nearly ten hours).