ViA Debuts Rugged Android Tablet For Digital Retailing
July 15, 2014 by Dave Haynes
There were dozens of companies in the various trade halls of Computex in Taiwan last month showing tablets of varied sizes, but I didn’t see many that looked tough enough to handle more than simple home usage.
Ruggedized tablets have the same DNA as consumer grade ones, but they’re engineered to handle the rigors of public usage.
VIA Technologies has just announced the VIA Viega, a ruggedized 10.1” Android tablet the Taiwanese firm says is engineered to survive the rigors of the showroom floor, warehouse, construction site and other enterprise-level mobile computing environments.
The IP65-rated VIA Viega sports a durable design that protects against spills, rain, and dust. It also features shock and vibration protection that safeguards the device against drops of up to two meters, as well as a tempered glass panel to prevent shattered screens. With an extra long-life polymer battery pack and an optional highly-customizable docking station to provide extensive connectivity for external peripherals and rapid charging capabilities, the VIA Viega ensures uninterrupted operation throughout an entire working shift in even the most demanding usage scenarios.
Powered by a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 SoC with NEON technology, the VIA Viega delivers outstanding multimedia performance, including hardware acceleration for stunning HD product demonstration and training videos. A rich set of wireless connectivity options including Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC, as well as optional 3G for transportation or remote location scenarios, means absolute flexibility in a wide variety of indoor and outdoor deployments.
The VIA Viega features a highly-customizable Android 4.2 Operating System with enhanced security features such as hardware-assisted data encryption/decryption and built-in manageability through the VIA SMART ETK. A wide range of framework, kernel and device management customization services for the VIA Viega are also available from VIA.
“As more and more enterprises seek to increase productivity and improve customer service by equipping their staff with mobile devices, they are quickly learning that it is critically important to deploy customized solutions built to withstand the demands of their target environments rather than standard off-the-shelf products,” said Epan Wu, Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. “With its rugged design, enhanced security features, and customization support, the VIA Viega addresses this need and provides the longevity support that enterprise level customers require.”
Look around and you see a fair amount of tablets showing up now in retail, but most appear to be consumer-grade. The way around is via enclosures that not only protect the things but make them look good. One of the best at that is up the street from me, called Armodilo.
Good to see some robust tablet products for unattended use in retail coming through. Maybe those installing iPads in clumsy enclosures to lock down the home button and hide the power connector, will realise there are much better alternatives.