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Don't Forget to watch Jason's short film about the TDS Recon:
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Please click on the link(s) below to view the
film. We have provided a High Resolution and Low resolution versions for
your viewing pleasure. Enjoy! |
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Overview:
 Have
you ever dropped your PDA? That sickening THUD as it hits the ground and suddenly
your whole world becomes grey and meaningless. For those people who know that
feeling or people who want to use a PDA in an electronic unfriendly area let
me introduce you to?.The TDS Recon!
Tripod Data Systems (TDS) has been developing and producing rugged GIS mapping
devices, Rugged Handheld computers and Mapping software since 1995. Their Recon
Rugged Handheld is what I will be reviewing here.
The Recon was designed as a rugged PDA for use in inclement environments.
It has been tested to several MILSPEC?s and passed or exceeded them. Holding
the Recon in your hand is comfortable. You can definitely feel the weight in
your hand at 17 Ounces.
The Recon has a rubberized outer shell and several ?Modules? including
the Power Boot Module which houses the battery, USB, RS-232 and power plug-ins.
The rubberized shell keeps the PDA inside dry and shock resistant. The Recon
is a perfect PDA for people working outdoors, construction sites, fishing boats
military or any other application where a regular PDA would be toast. There
are several accessories that you can purchase separately for your Recon including
an AA battery Pack for extra power and Extended CF Cap for using CF card with
larger footprints like GPS modules and Bluetooth cards.
The connections on the bottom of the Recon were a very awesome feature. Instead
of some proprietary sync cable and power it was refreshing to see a standard
A to B USB Cable to sync with and a standard power plug to power my device.
If you have ever forgotten one of these cables or needed to connect to a computer
just for a second you can see the value of these connections. I was able to
hook up the Recon to a friend?s computer using the USB Cable form his
printer! As if this weren?t amazing enough the Recon has a standard RS-232
port built in! So you can use serial to sync if need be. Being an itinerant
network administrator I found the RS-232 port to be invaluable. Using a Terminal
Emulator on the Recon I was able to hook to several routers and firewalls just
as if I had lugged my laptop in with me!
Facts and Figures
As you can see the Recon packs quite a hardware punch and bundled with Windows
Mobile 2003 this PDA can hold its own with most of today?s PDA?s.
The Recon, regrettably, did not come with any kind of wireless communication
hardware built in. This puts it behind the industry curve where even entry level
PDA?s have at least 802.11b built-in. The Recon makes up for this deficiency
with 128MB of Non Volatile RAM onboard and a 400MHz Processor.
The Recon boasts over 15 hours of continuous operation with default settings.
This number is slightly incorrect. I wrote a simple program to exercise the
processor and play an MP3 then record a time stamp to a simple log file. The
results were an astounding 21.25 hours of continuous operation! One drawback
is no backup battery. The Recon provides for swapping out the PowerBoot Module
(the battery) if you can turn the device off 1st. You have 30 seconds to swap
out the Power Boot Module or put the Recon on AC power. If you fall out of this
thirty second window OR, as happened to me, you lose power while the Recon is
on you will be reloading everything on the Recon. After such a good and rugged
design this seems like a rather obvious feature to incorporate.
Rugged Design
The Recon was tested for it ruggedness by using the U.S. Military Specification
Sheets. The MILSPEC is the most detailed and comprehensive standards and testing
environment on the planet. Here is a link describing each one tested and how
the Recon fared.
http://www.tdsway.com/?Sec1=products&grp=hdw&Sec2=tdsreconseries&Sec3=glossarystandards
Each MILSPEC section tests a different area, humidity, immersion, shock etc.
So in the interest of a thorough review I had to test them for myself. See the
video for eyes on results.
To test against shock I let my 6 year old daughter play with the Recon. True
to the nature of little kids the Recon was dropped in about 15.3 seconds after
handing it to her! The recon took the fall and kept on smiling. Just for good
measure I also performed my own drop test with good results. See the video and
pictures of my tests.
Results
Overall the Recon is a very good PDA and its ruggedness makes it perfect for
any harsh environment. I was very impressed by its ability to function in water,
sand and mud and still come out working perfectly.
I especially enjoyed the button layout. It allows you to operate the recon
without using a stylus that could potentially get lost. The power button also
can double as a soft reset by holding it down for 3 seconds.
The connections on the bottom for sync and power were very neat as well. Allowing
you to use readily available cables conforming to a standard is something that
PDA makers should have been doing all along!
The Recon did have several drawbacks. The most glaring being the lack of any
kind of wireless communications built in. Using Wifi and Bluetooth to connect
to things like portable printers, headsets and Wireless networks would have
made the Recon a stellar product.
I would defiantly recommend the Recon for anyone with a need to be out of doors
and in the mud and rain. The price tag is a bit steep for every day consumers
but it is a worthy investment for a company who needs a handheld in the field
without having to replace it every few months. Defiantly a handheld worth looking
at.
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