Motorola introduces new MOTOTRBO radios (with related video)

LAS VEGAS — Motorola Solutions this week unveiled the SL Series of sleek DMR handsets that is designed to serve the communications needs primarily of customer-facing users operating on the vendor giant’s successful MOTOTRBO solution.

“This is world’s thinnest and lightest two-way radio in the DMR professional series class,” Paul Cizek, Motorola’s director of professional and commercial radio in North America, told reporters yesterday during an interview session at the Motorola channel partners exposition.

While MOTOTRBO has been a popular choice for many enterprises, some customers such as manufacturing executives and customer-facing personnel have expressed concern about the use of traditional two-way radios, which are much larger than cellular smartphones and typically color display screens, as well as discreet features such as vibrate alerts, Cizek said. These capabilities have been popular among Motorola Solutions’ channel partners this week, he said.

“They’re already thinking of the additional users that can be tied together with their work teams, who in the past were reluctant to carry a large radio with them,” Cizek said.

Echoing this sentiment was Andy Buddenhagen, director of sales for Motorola dealer RadioOne, which has integrated the SL series radios in the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, one of four earlier adopters of the DMR handsets.

“It’s a game changer for us — a huge game changer,” Buddenhagen said. “The size and features is what the customers asked for.”

Other key features of the SL series include more intuitive user interface for work-ticket applications, day/night display capabilities, Intelligent Audio that automatically adjusts the radio’s volume to be appropriate for the surrounding noise conditions and integrated Bluetooth capability, which is used to support wireless headsets and data applications, Cizek said.

“The Bluetooth capability we have also incorporates data, and we’re finding that this is really an exciting application differentiation for us, to be able to take Bluetooth scanners, credit-card readers and possibly a tablet, and use the radio system to send data back into a host application,” he said.

“Now, workers can be that much more untethered and have mobility with capabilities beyond text messaging and work-ticket management. They might be able to do scanning, credit-card transactions and other things of this nature.”

Motorola also introduced the XPR 5000 mobile-radio series to its MOTOTRBO portfolio. The XPR 5000 series features a full-color display, best-in-class audio, and integrated Bluetooth for audio and data.