Socket Communications Inc. released today a smartphone that will target both the consumer oriented PDA market and the industrial environments. It is a device good looking enough to be appealing to the usual customer that goes for the looks and doesn't care as much about the resistance of the device because he won't drop the handset pretty often but, and here comes the good part of the story, it is also rugged enough to be capable of enduring the harshest environments one can think of (according to what its manufacturer declares).

Don't hold me responsible if you drop it from your balcony on the concrete! You will most probably find it in more than one piece but, who knows, if you're the lucky one in your family and if you have a good day, you'll be able to use it again.

The Socket SoMo 650 is a handheld made to withstand the random bruises and bumps one cannot avoid when having to work on a building site or some other place with enough deadly perils for the smartphone.

Its spec sheet tells us about a Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, a QVGA display, some Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, WLAN WiFi technology with VoIP, reinforced SDIO and CompactFlash card slots, 256 Flash ROM and 128 MB SDRAM RAM memory, a high capacity Li-Ion battery and, oh goodie, an Intel 624 MHz processor.

According to Kevin Mills, president and CEO of Socket Mobile, "mobile computing systems available today do not meet the mobility needs of small- to medium-sized companies or many business units within larger enterprises. Currently companies need to choose between devices that are often too costly and over featured or inexpensive and under featured, which results in mobility solutions being overly difficult to justify and deploy. The SoMo 650 is designed to change all of that, since it's designed and developed for the currently under-served business mobility market."

The SoMo 650 is the first handheld in a line-up of devices that Socket Communications Inc. will release during 2007. The handset will be available on the mobile market during this year's second quarter in USA, in select European and Asian countries for a price of 648 $.