Pharos 565 Rugged PDA Revealed Rugged PDA Sports 654MHz Processor, 256MB RAM, 3.5-inch Screen

Many of us have jobs where we don't have a use for the various rugged
gadgets that are out there, but for those who do, the folks at Pharos
have introduced a new rugged PDA. Pharos makes a small line of smart

phones, GPS personal nav units and PDAs, so the rugged 565 PDA is
coming from people with experience.
Under the hood, it's got a Marvell 624MHz processor, along with 256MB of
RAM and 512MB of flash memory for hard storage. It's running Windows
Mobile 6.5, which, unfortunately is about to be outdated by Windows
'Phone' 7 at MWC next week. The screen comes in at a meek 3.5-inches,
but I don't imagine anybody will be watching videos for fun on this thing.
A TFTS reader once commented that a lot of rugged gadgets have Windows
Mobile, so it would have been nice to see Pharos try something out of
the box with Android or some other flavor of Linux. However, all of
Pharos' other smartphones and PDAs were running Windows Mobile, so they
were sticking to what they knew.
For connectivity, it has WiFi and Bluetooth, as well as a GPS receiver
for navigation. While Pharos isn't shipping the device with any of these
accessories, it has a ton of enterprise ports for add-ons like barcode
and RFID readers, which opens it up for a lot of solutions. It's also
meets IP54 standards for drop protection, which ensures it can withstand
a four to five foot drop.
The rugged Pharos 565 PDA is now shipping from Pharos' website for $530.