Fully rugged mobile workstation for vehicle use
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

The Motorola MW810 is a modular mobile workstation for mission-critical vehicle use that we added in March of 2007 to the RuggedPCReview.com database. Our most recent check showed the machine still in Motorola's lineup, substantially upgraded.

All MW810 components (system unit, display, keyboard) are ruggedized and configured so that they can be mounted in various ways. The very compact system unit can be equipped with one of three state-of-the-art Intel processors and uses a heated and shock-protected 250GB hard disk. Instead of the hard disk, the system can be run off a solid stat disk.

The very compact system unit can accommodate multiple expansion boards that can add communications, video and other expansion options. Those include DVI video output, up to four USB ports and up to four RS232 ports, or composite video output.

The MW810 offers additional expansion and interfaces in the primary display unit. The LCD is a transflective 12.1-inch unit available either in standard brightness (350 NITs) or (very) high brightness (1200 NIT). Both have XGA resolution and can use either standard analog or digital input. There is a tempered glass touchscreen as well as three more USB ports and optional Bluetooth. Also available is a smaler 8.4-inch SVGA display

The internal PCI Express Mini Card slots allow for wireless LAN and one of three available wireless wide area netwwork radio options. The radios include optional Gobi 1000 with either a CDMA EV-DO Revision A, Release 0, and 1X networks or HSUPA/ HSDPA/ UMTS/ EDGE/ GPRS firmware load. The MW810 can also be equipped with a Trimble Lassen iQ GPS module supporting multiple protocols, or a dead-reckoning GPS.

The whole system supports either 12 or 24 Volt vehicle power and is built to withstand substantial abuse. Sealing is up to IP54 specs, operating temperature ranges from -22 to 162 degrees, and the system is tested for humidity, shock, dust, salt fog, flammability, radiation, vibration and more in accordance with the pertaining MIL-STD and other testing procedures.

Overall, the MW810 provides largely obscolescence-proof computing power in an extremely flexible and expandable paackage that's ideal for a wide variety of vehicle mount applications.