Today we take a look at the MC35, Motorola's sleek little PDA phone that includes a built-in camera and scanner! There's been a lot of buzz in the industry about this device. It looks a lot like a Blackberry with a larger screen. In fact, this is the perfect tool for your Armani suited sales force, or your executives on the go. This, however, is not the device for your delivery drivers. While I wouldn't call it a consumer grade PDA, it's definitely not a ruggedized device either. Motorola calls it "durable." Its tiny (5" L x 2.59" W x 0.81" H) form factor includes a 2.8" QVGA screen, full QWERTY keyboard, joystick, and 2 mega-pixel camera that doubles as an image scanner. Running Intel's XScale PXA270 processor at 416 MHz, it's also a speedy little machine. You can look at all of the specs (along with available accessories) here.
I've been using the MC35 for the last several weeks, and here's what I've found. What it is: It's a solid little PDA / phone with the ability to run any of your WM5 software, like our own Mobiquity SellTM, the mobile sales solution. What it's not: It's not an optimal scanning device. Yes, it has a built in imager, but if your software depends on a fast scanner to operate efficiently, you'll want to stick with the MC70. The MC35 has what Motorola calls a "casual use scanner." That means it's slow, and has no aiming point. It does display a view finder on the screen while scanning, but I found that it was annoying to use. Even more annoying was the time it takes to scan (an average of 4 seconds).
Without a practical scanner, the MC35 is best suited to sales applications which build orders using order templates. And for this use, it works very well. If your sales software includes the ability to create orders via pre-loaded order templates (like Mobiquity Sell does) then you will need the scanner only occasionally. The joystick interface makes it easy to navigate a list of products, editing order quantities as you go. Should you need to add a product not on the template, the scanner works well enough for intermittent use. Another area of use would be merchandising. The screen is vibrant, and displays planograms well. With the full QWERTY keyboard, filling out surveys will be a breeze.
The small form factor means that it will slip easily into your shirt pocket. At only 6.53 ounces (with the standard battery) the MC35 likes to live in your pocket or on your belt. Where ever you decide to keep it, it won’t get in your way. As a PDA, it has the two things that few machines combine in such a compact package: a QVGA screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. I've always hated the twin abominations of most PDA's: the on-screen keyboard and it's evil sibling the character recognition pad. This keyboard is a very convenient size. The keys are large enough and separated enough to avoid striking multiple keys, while at the same time, the keyboard is compact enough to put all the keys within easy reach of each thumb.
The cell phone is accessed by pressing the green phone key. I like the fact that the two phone keys are physical keys built into the case. Often a PDA that includes a cell phone feature will force you to access the cell phone via the start menu. The call quality is very good. I tested the phone in two modes: Speaker phone and handset. The speaker phone is loud enough to hear in quiet to moderately noisy environments. Using it as a handset, I was able to hear well in most environments, and fairly well in very noisy environments. The microphone employs very effective sound dampening technology that filters out background noise. I tested the phone while standing on a freeway overpass, and in both handset and speaker mode, the microphone picked up my voice very well, distinguishing it from the ambient background noise of the traffic flowing past.
So, how rugged is this device? Let me put it this way: don't drop it from more than 3 feet, and don't let it land on anything harder than tile. This is not a rugged device. It's not going to like wet weather either, and keep it out of dust storms. There's not a rubber seal or gasket in the device, and while the specs say it survived 150 tumbles of 18 inches, they don't claim any sort of IP rating. If you decide you do want to use the MC35 for more than light duty, Motorola makes a customized rubber boot that encases it in a thick white translucent sheath. I didn't have one, so I can't comment on it. But here's a picture of it.
When it came time to test battery life, I quickly discovered how casual this scanner is. It's slow. REALLY SLOW. To build an order of 100 line items took over14 minutes to scan each barcode and enter a quantity for each product. The scanner took an average of 4 seconds to read the barcodes. The first 100 scans burned up 24% of the battery life, and the next 200 burned up another 16%. At 300 scans I decided no one in their right minds would use this device to scan more than 30 items per day, much less 300, and was tempted to stop there, but I pushed on through to 800 scans... a truly excruciating experience. At 800 scans battery levels were down to 20% and performance was severely degraded.
Realistically if your people need to scan more than 100 times a day, do them a favor, and choose a different device. I did learn a couple of things about this scanner. There is a setting called "Press and Hold Trigger" -- make sure it's unchecked. If not, you'll be required to hold down the scan key until the barcode is read. In practice, this slows down the scanner, and fatigues your hand. Also, distance from the barcode is important, too close, and it won't read. The unit has a wide read range from 4 inches out to 10 inches. Stay in that range for fastest read times. Read time is also linked to battery levels, the lower the levels, the longer the read times. To test this I did 100 scans while on external power, and the average read time dropped to 3.3 seconds (still slow as a pig). So what does all this mean to battery life? Stay under 300 scans a day, and your battery should last the entire route. Over 300 scans, get the extended battery, or better yet, choose a device with a better scanner. NOTE TO MOTOROLA: The MC35 would be a best seller if you would just put in a REAL scanner! Also, putting the camera lens on the back of the unit makes sense, however, ergonomically, it's a terrible place for the scanner: it's awkward, and it slows down the order taking process.
To sum it up, I do like the MC35, the stylish looks, the full keyboard, small size, phone and bright screen are all pluses. I think your regional managers will love it, and so will your merchandisers and sales force (as long as they don't have to scan with it). For the right application, it's a great choice.
Brett Birdsong
Sr. Marketing Manager
