If you can assign your product to PDA category in 2010, I have to admire your guts. You heard that right, AIS. That’s how much I look up to you in the wake of your Ultra-Rugged RPDA37, a MID (okay… a PDA) running Windows Mobile 6.1 with all the durable credentials to help it survive extreme environmental challenges.
Forget rugged – this thing is ultra-rugged and unmistakably so. It’s about two to three times as thick as most cellphones, sports a metal body and comes reinforced with plump slabs of rubber on each corner. Durability claims include being able to survive 60-foot drops and resistance to every imaginable taxing condition, including water, dust, altitude, extreme temperatures and thermal shock.
The AIS Ultra-Rugged RPDA37 comes with an ancient 624MHz Marvell PXA270 CPU, which was popular among higher-end smartphones about four years ago. It has a 3.7-inch resistive touchscreen (320 x 240 resolution), 256MB of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a slew of ports (three USB, one RJ-45, one CF slot, 3.5mm audio, 3.5mm mic, MicroSD and more). GPS and 3G are optional.
Running Windows Mobile 6.1, it can’t really do anything that most modern entry-level smartphones can do. Other than being able to break your nose while staying operational, of course. Can your HTC HD2 do that? Hah. I didn’t think so.
Starting at a grandiose $1,899 price, the AIS Ultra-Rugged RPDA37 is an expensive slab of Windows Mobile hardware. If you want to check your email while surfing in a tsunami come 2012, though, I doubt you’ll want to carry anything else.
[AIS Pro]