Small, rugged Android handheld with integrated industrial-grade scanner
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

Update: Teguar announced 11/2021 release of an Android 11 V2 version of the TRH-A5380-05 with Bluetooth 5.0 LE as well as various technology and performance upgrades.

Teguar is not necessarily a familiar name when contemplating the purchase of a rugged handheld or tablet. That may soon change as the Charlotte, North Carolina, based company is a hard-charging provider of highly customizable industrial and medical computers that's rapidly moving up on the Inc. 5000 list.

Launched in 2010 by a Swiss native with years of experience in industrial computer systems, Teguar combines American adaptability and technological leadership with Swiss precision, quality, and attention to detail. In this review we're examining their versatile Android-based rugged 5-inch scanner handheld designed for use in various industries including, with a light blue and white color scheme and antimicrobial housing, healthcare.

While smartphone displays are now approaching seven inches diagonally, industrial handheld screens are more likely to be in the 5-inch range. That's because rugged devices have protective bezel area around the display, and in the case of this Teguar handheld, also physical keys. The image below shows the Teguar TRH-A5380-05 from the front and all four sides.

Measuring 6.1 x 2.9 inches, the TRH-A5380-05 has a footprint barely larger than that of an iPhone 12. It's fairly slender, too, for a rugged handheld, although there's a "scanner bump" in the back. Weight is 9.6 ounces as tested. This handheld won't weigh anyone down.

While all smartphones look pretty much the same these days, industrial handhelds actually have a big more room for individual design. The TRH-A5380-05 has a little chrome insert on top, a slightly curvier design, as well as room for those four physical buttons. The TRH-A5380-05, of course, has the standard Android buttons in software, but there are times when hardware buttons work better. And having two of them programmable, even better.

As is the case with most handhelds, there isn't much in terms of I/O and controls. Just a micro USB port for wired connectivity (USB Type-C would have been nice), 3.5mm audio, a power jack and docking pins for the optional dock that can also charge an extra battery and has two full-size USB ports. Access to the Micro-SD card and Micro-SIM card slots is inside the battery compartment. As for buttons, there are volume controls on the left and power and a scan button on the right.

Good display

In modern electronics, the display is everything. And that especially goes for those that will be used under greatly varying conditions, ranging from office to anywhere out there in the field. The Teguar TRH-A5380-05's screen measures 5.0 inches diagonally and has 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. That makes for a tall 9:16 aspect ratio, pretty much in line with contemporary smartphones.

In terms of sharpness, 1280 x 710 pixel on a 5-inch screen makes for 294 pixels per inch. That'd be on the low end of modern smartphones, but is more than adequate and still qualifies for "retina" resolution, i.e. the eye cannot make out individual pixels.

Like almost all modern mobile devices, the TRH-A5380-05 uses capacitive multi-touch. It's as smooth and responsive as users have come to expect. It's a glossy screen, as most are these days, and uses Corning's Gorilla Glass for damage resistance and scratch protection.

Display brightness is usually given in "nits," a measure of the luminance of a screen. The device specs claim 300 nits, and we measured 290 nits. The slightly lower number is likely due to touch overlay losses. For a device being used outdoors, 290 nits would be on the low end — laptops usually score around 250 nits, tablets 300 to 500, modern smartphones 400-550, and some rugged gear can go to 1000 and beyond. Given that TRH-A5380-05 devices will likely be used indoors most of the time, 300 nits is fine (and good for battery life).

Equally important in a handheld is that the display remains viewable from any angle, and that it won't change contrast, brightness and colors when viewed from angles. The TRH-A5380-05 passes that test easily.

Built to last and take a beating

There is rarely a need to open up a rugged handheld, especially if it has an externally accessible battery like this Teguar device. At RuggedPCReview, however, we'd like to show our readers how well products are made, and so we took a look inside to examine the inner design and layout of the TRH-A5380-05.

Getting inside the device is easy as long as one has a Torx T5 screwdriver to undo a few small screws. Once those are out, the two black polycarbonate plastic halves easily come apart, with not a single wire or ribbon cable between the sides. Sealing between the halves is via a tongue-and-groove design with a precision-cut replaceable clear rubber pressure seal (we prefer bright colors so one can more easily check the seal for its condition and fit). The same kind of clear O-ring also seals the battery compartment. There, too, it's imperative to examine the condition and fit of the seal every time the compartment cover is removed.

Unlike lesser handhelds, the Teguar TRH-A5380-05 has a magnesium chassis as a strong and meticulously manufactured structure and foundation for mounting the display and all electronics.

The pictures below show the TRH-A5380-05 opened up. Click on the image for a full-size version.

The rechargeable internal 3.8V, 4,000mAH Lithium-Ion Polymer battery packs 15.2 watt-hours, which Teguar says is good for seven hours of playing video on a charge. We estimate battery life is a good deal longer for typical field work and scanning use. The 2-1/8 x 3 inch battery is just a quarter inch thick and can replaced for a freshly charged one in seconds.

The interior of the handheld itself is packed with electronics, shielding and plastic brackets and mounts for various modules and components (such as the camera, scanner, speaker, antennae, etc.). All I/O sits on a separate daughterboard — a solution that allows the manufacturer to accommodate updates and customizations. The unit's Micro-SD and Micro-SIM card caddies also sit on the motherboard. Caution here: the caddy covers must be slid before they can be flipped open, and then locked once a card is in.

Performance

Assessing the performance and capabilities of an Android device is quite different from that of a Windows/Intel device. Those are fairly easily determined. After reviewing and benchmarking Intel-based Windows devices for many years, one look at the spec sheet is usually enough for us to get an idea of where a device fits into the overall performance landscape. With Android devices it's a bit more difficult.

For the TRH-A5380-05, Teguar chose the 64-bit 1.45GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 MT8735A from MediaTek, a chipset used in a variety of brand-name Android phones and tablets. The MT8783 chip is based on the ARMv8 instruction set, and the Cortex-A53 is the successor to the popular Cortex-A7. For graphics, the MT8735 includes an ARM Mali-T720 GPU.

In our benchmark testing (AnTuTu (60,649), and Vellamo (1,697 multi-core)), the Teguar TRH-A5380-05 doesn't match the blistering performance of state-of-the-art consumer smartphones, nor did we expect that. But it scored roughly on par with other midrange rugged-market Android handhelds we've tested.

Industrial-grade scanning

Thanks to apps, any smartphone with a camera can be used to scan barcodes these days. But for professional scanning that won't do; you need a dedicated industrial-grade scanner and decoder, and that's what's inside this Teguar handheld.

The Honeywell N3680 2D imager is tiny even though it has its own integrated decoder board, so decoding won't slow down the device CPU. There's a red LED dot aimer for quick targeting and scans can be done in total darkness all the way up to bright sunlight.

The TRH-A5380-05's imager supports a wide variety of 1D and 2D symbologies as well as PDF417 barcodes. It is designed to handle poorly-printed barcodes, and can also read barcodes directly from smartphone screens. This allows reading of mobile coupons, loyalty cards, mobile tickets, paperless boarding passes and barcode payment systems for mobile wallet applications.

Cameras up to the job

Like virtually all modern tablets, the Teguar has front (2-megapixel) and rear (8-megapixel) cameras. The included Android Camera app doesn't provide many options and settings, albeit substantially more than what the standard Microsoft Windows Camera app offers.

The purpose of cameras integrated into industrial and professional handhelds is to make it unnecessary to take along a dedicated camera or use one's smartphone to document work on the job. The cameras in the Teguar TRH-A5380-05 can do that. Click on the sample picture compilation to see it in full size.

Ruggedness

Ruggedized handheld computers must bring reliable computing power to the field and on the job, even if that job is in demanding, inhospitable environments. That means the device must be able to handle the kind of spills, bumps, grinds and splashes that might happen out there. Consumer devices generally can't do that, not even in a case.

The TRH-A5380-05 is much better equipped to hold up. Its design and build are far stronger and far less vulnerable than any consumer handheld. The device has a wide operating temperature range of -14 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (-10° to +50°C), enough to allow deployment in almost any setting.

Ingress protection is at the IP65 level. That means the handheld is fully dustproof and can also handle low pressure water jets from all directions.

The display uses Gorilla Glass, the industry standard for strengthened, shatter and scratch-proof display protection, and the screen surface has a slightly raised lip around it that provides extra protection against breakage. Teguar lists a large variety of strong cleaning agents that can be used on the device.

Bottom line: Teguar TRH-A5380-05 rugged handheld

While most of Teguar's computers are Windows-based industrial-grade panels and box PCs, the company also offers about a dozen rugged Windows and Android tablets and now, with the TRH-A5380-05, a very competent rugged handheld.

About the size of a modern Smartphone but a lot tougher, the Teguar handheld is equally suitable for deployment in warehousing, retail, hospitality, all sorts of logistics and supply chain jobs and even — with a special color scheme and antimicrobial housing — healthcare.

It's a handy, versatile Android device with programmable buttons for ease-of-use, replaceable battery, an integrated scanner and even an optional pistol-style grip for extended scanning work. -- Conrad H. Blickenstorfer, November 2020