A New Smartphone Market Disruptor?

Honeywell (NYSE:HON) has found its entrance into the competitive smartphone market.

On Tuesday, the company unveiled the Dolphin 70e Black; a phone that made no attempt to model itself after Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone. The phone is not sleek; nor does it have a particularly large screen. At 0.75-inches thick and weighing 7 ounces, the phone is meant for customers who work or live in rough conditions.

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In the device’s accompanying press release, Honeywell said the phone targets customers who want “something sleeker and lighter” than a typical industrial device, but “tougher than a consumer-grade phone.” The company expects the phone to meet the needs of the growing mobile workforce, which according to the market research firm IDC, will reach 1.3 billion by 2015.

“Dolphin Black reflects two device trends in today’s industrial world: consolidation and consumerization,” said John Waldron, president of Honeywell Scanning & Mobility. “Workers and enterprises are looking for a single device that can do the work of several.”

In developing the phone, Honeywell took into consideration input from its customers, and as a result the Dolphin Black has a 4.3-inch touchscreen that can be viewed in direct sunlight, up to twelve hours of battery life, and a design that allows it to be submerged in water. Customers will be allowed a choice between Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows operating system or Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android.

Shipments of the device will begin in February of next year.

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